Km.  I.  iEllfott 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


ON   ART   AND   ARTISTS 


On  A  Hand  Artists. 


ON   ART 
AND   ARTISTS 


BY 

MAX  "NORDAU 

AUTHOR  OF  "DEGENERATION" 


TRANSLATED   BY   W.    F.    HARVEY,    M.A. 


PHILADELPHIA 
GEORGE    \V.    JACOBS    &    CO, 

PUBLISHERS 


Printed  in  Great  Britain. 


\_All  rights  reserved.'} 


A/ 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  THE  SOCIAL  MISSION  OF  ART  i 

II.  SOCIALISTIC  ART — CONSTANTIN  MEUNIER      .            .  30 

III.  THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE        ....  44 

IV.  THE  OLD  FRENCH  MASTERS    .            .                       .56 
V.  A  CENTURY  OF  FRENCH  ART  ....  70 

VI.  THE  SCHOOL  OF  1830    .....  96 
VII.  THE  TRIUMPH  OF  A  REVOLUTION— 

THE  REALISTS           .....  107 

ALFRED  SISLEY          .....  123 

CAMILLE  PISSARRO    .....  133 

WHISTLER'S  PSYCHOLOGY     ....  145 

VIII.  GUSTAVE  MOREAU        .....  155 

IX.  EUGENE  CARRIERS       .  .  •  .166 

X.  Puvis  DE  CHAVANNES  .....  185 

XL  BRIGHT  AND  DARK  PAINTING — CHARLES  COTTET   .  201 

XII.  PHYSIOGNOMIES  IN  PAINTING.            .            .           .  217 

XIII.  AUGUSTS  RODIN           .....  275 

XIV.  RESURRECTION — BARTHOLOME            .           .           .  294 
XV.  JEAN  CARRIES  ......  308 

XVI.  WORKS  OF  ART  AND  ART  CRITICISMS           .           .  320 

XVII.  MY  OWN  OPINION       .....  336 
INDEX    .......  349 


1932270 


ON   ART   AND    ARTISTS 


i 

THE   SOCIAL   MISSION   OF   ART 

THERE  exists  a  school  of  aestheticism  which  laughs 
contemptuously  at  the  mere  sight  of  this  superscrip- 
tion. Art  having  a  mission !  What  utter  nonsense. 
A  person  must  be  a  rank  Philistine  to  connect  with 
the  idea  of  art  the  conception  of  a  non- artistic 
mission,  be  it  social  or  otherwise.  Has  a  work  of 
art  any  other  mission  than  to  give  pleasure  by 
beauty?  It  strives  to  attain  no  goal  that  lies  out- 
side of  itself.  It  is  its  own  object,  and  whoever 
assigns  to  it  another,  sins  against  the  sanctity 
of  art. 

This  is,  in  short,  the  theory  of  art  for  art's  sake : 
Part  pour  I' art.  I  deem  this  theory  false  and  a  hall- 
mark of  crass  ignorance,  for  psychology  and  the 
history  of  civilisation  and  art,  the  history  of  all  arts, 
prove  irrefutably  the  vanity  and  worthlessness  of  the 

I  A 


On  Art  and  Artists 

concept  that  denies  to  art  any  other  task  and  mission 
than  that  of  being  beautiful. 

Certainly  art  is,  in  the  main,  a  purely  subjective 
activity,  in  which  the  artist  wishes  solely  to  satisfy 
himself,  without  thinking  of  any  person  or  thing 
external  to  himself.  The  psychological  roots  of  all 
artistic  creation  are,  in  fact,  an  exceptional  sensitive- 
ness and  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  artist.  We 
know  that  every  moderately  strong  impression  which 
man — and,  moreover,  not  only  man,  but  also  every 
living  creature,  however  low  in  the  scale — receives 
from  the  external  world,  excites  in  him  processes, 
which,  in  the  case  of  man  and  the  higher  animals, 
attain  consciousness  as  emotion  or  passion.  The 
emotion  imperiously  urges  in  towards  liberation 
through  movements,  that  is  to  say,  muscular  activity, 
which,  in  many  cases,  is  accompanied  by  glandular 
activity,  e.g.  tears,  secretion  of  saliva,  perspiration, 
etc.  To  men  of  the  average  type  the  usual  forms 
of  manifesting  their  emotion  suffice.  If  they  have 
wept  in  sorrow,  laughed  for  joy,  cursed  or  clenched 
their  fist  in  anger,  they  are  pacified.  Their  emotion 
has  spent  itself  and  become  exhausted,  and  their 
physical  life  once  more  flows  in  its  accustomed 
channels. 

However,  if,  instead  of  the  average  man,  we  have 
before  us  a  creature  of  exceptional  sensitiveness  and 
emotionality,  the  psychical  processes  assume  another 
shape.  This  creature  feels  all  phenomena  more 

2 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

acutely ;  they  arouse  in  him  more  violent  passions ; 
his  emotions  are  deeper  and  more  lasting.  Their 
normal  forms  of  expression  do  not  suffice  to  lull 
them.  They  take  possession  of  his  soul,  organise 
themselves,  show  a  tendency  to  become  compelling 
ideas,  and  oppress  it  with  psycho-motorial  incite- 
ments or  impulses  until  it  has  freed  itself  from  them 
by  acts  which  stand  in  proper  ratio  to  the  number  or 
violence  of  the  emotions.  A  being  whose  excessive 
emotionality  is  of  an  angry,  malicious  nature  attains 
relief  only  through  deeds  of  destruction.  Such  is 
the  case  with  most  sub-species  of  born  criminals. 
Should  the  exceptionally  strong  emotions  not  be 
of  a  destructive  nature,  they  find  their  outlet  other- 
wise by  artistic  creations,  which,  therefore,  are  a 
liberation  and  solution  of  emotion  that  has  become 
overmastering. 

But  this  simple,  as  it  were,  normal  case,  in 
which  the  work  of  art  actually  fulfils  a  purely 
subjective  mission,  and  aims  at  no  other  object 
than  to  relieve  the  artist's  nervous  system  and  to 
unburden  his  mind  of  a  compelling  idea — this  case 
is  actually  met  with  only  in  the  earliest  ages  of 
mankind.  Art  for  art's  sake  —  the  art  which  is 
practised  purely  for  the  relief  and  satisfaction  of 
the  artist — is  that  of  the  cave-man  of  the  quaternary 
period.  The  artist  who  adorned  the  walls  of  the 
Caves  of  Mouthe l  with  figures  of  animals ;  who 

1  In  the  department  of  Doubs. 

3 


On  Art  and  Artists 

scratched  the  famous  mammoth  on  the  tusk  of  La 
Madeleine  in  the  Dordogne ;  the  draughtsman  of 
Bruniquel,  of  Schaffhausen ;  the  author  of  the  rock- 
pictures  in  Sweden,  probably  did  not  trouble  himself 
as  to  whether  he  was  producing  any  effect  on  others. 
In  all  likelihood  he  did  not  work  for  society.  His 
psychology  is  disclosed  to  us  by  the  subjects  he 
treated.  He  was  an  enthusiastic  hunter,  endowed 
with  a  particularly  lively  intuition  and  manual 
dexterity.  On  the  days  when  he  could  not  go 
hunting,  either  because  bad  weather  prevented  him 
doing  so,  or  external  compulsion  —  perhaps  an 
accident  met  with  in  the  chase — confined  him  to 
his  cave,  he  thought  longingly  of  his  favourite 
occupation.  The  beasts  that  composed  his  usual 
booty  lived  in  his  imagination.  His  grotto  was 
peopled  with  the  monsters  of  the  forest  and  plain 
of  primitive  times.  He  saw  the  mammoth  with  its 
stiff  mane,  the  grisly  cave-bear,  the  aurochs  and 
giant-elk,  the  shaggy,  thick-set  horse  of  Solutre" ;  he 
pursued,  fought,  slew  them.  He  felt  all  the  keen 
joys  of  these  mighty  deeds,  and  became  so  strongly 
excited  that  he  could  not  refrain  from  realising  the 
lively  pictures  of  his  fancy,  by  drawing  them  on 
bones,  tusks,  or  rocks,  or  carving  them  on  stags' 
horns  and  elephants'  teeth.  It  would  not  gainsay 
this  psychology  of  primitive  human  art,  if  the  artists 
in  remote  ages  (as  the  latest  pre-historic  investiga- 
tions seem  to  attest)  connected  superstitious  ideas 

4 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

with  the  imitation  of  their  animals  of  the  chase, 
perhaps  believed  by  such  means  they  cast  a  spell  on 
the  animals  portrayed,  and  facilitated  their  capture. 
A  superstition  like  this  would,  in  its  turn,  become 
a  source  of  fresh  emotions  which  also  seek  outward 
expression. 

Besides  the  hunter  there  was  also  the  warrior, 
who  liked  to  portray  his  conquered  enemies,  and 
the  sensualist,  who  sought  delight  in  carving  female 
busts,  the  types  of  which,  to  our  taste,  seem  very 
ugly,  but  may  have  appeared  alluring  to  him. 

These  savage  forefathers  who  adorned  the  caves  of 
the  early  stone  age  with  works  of  art  not  invariably 
crude ;  who  woke  the  echo  of  the  forest  valleys  with 
plaintive  or  yearning  melodies ;  who  excited  them- 
selves by  sensuous  dances  in  the  moonlight  nights  of 
spring ;  who  formed,  in  symbolic  and  allegorical  songs, 
their  mystic  impressions  of  the  great  phenomena 
of  the  weather  and  sky ; — these  savage  forefathers 
were  the  first,  but  at  the  same  time  last,  purely 
subjective  artists,  the  only  real  believers  in  the 
dogma  of  "  art  for  art's  sake." 

In  order  to  find  them  once  more  in  our  own  times, 
we  must  seek  them  in  the  nursery  or  the  Board 
School  class  -  room.  The  artist  of  primitive  times 
survives  by  atavism  in  the  child.  But  he  substitutes 
for  the  rock-wall  of  the  cave  and  the  mammoth's 
tooth  his  slate,  copy-book,  school-books,  often  enough 
his  desk  and  form,  which  he  adorns  with  drawings 

5 


On  Art  and  Artists 

that,  if  not  particularly  finished,  are,  nevertheless, 
always  full  of  expression,  and  recognisable.  The 
child  does  not  give  way  to  his  artistic  wantonness  in 
order  to  please  others.  He  hides  it,  moreover,  mostly 
for  obvious  reasons,  from  the  eyes  of  strangers ;  he 
only  draws  to  portray  symbolically  that  which  has 
made  a  strong  impression  on  him.  He  always  notes 
down  the  important,  distinguishing  features  which 
have  struck  him  in  the  phenomenon.  This  fierce 
mustache,  the  circle  drawn  across  which  represents  the 
head,  is  for  the  little  draughtsman  the  characteristic 
of  manly  dignity ;  this  right-angled  broken  stroke, 
which  bristles  up  over  a  row  of  men,  is  the  formid- 
able bayonet  that  marks  the  soldier;  this  dispro- 
portionately big  stick  in  another  man's  hand  is  the 
dreaded  badge  that  embodies  the  schoolmaster's 
power.  The  young  artist  has  obeyed  genuine 
impulses.  His  art  forms  really  spring  out  of  the 
deep  grounds  of  his  emotion. 

With  advancing  civilisation,  however,  this  state 
of  things  quickly  changes.  The  artist  soon  notices 
that  he  is  differently  conditioned  to  the  rest,  the 
average  men ;  that  his  feelings  are  keener,  their 
manifestation  more  expressive  than  with  the  latter. 
He  becomes  conscious  of  his  superiority,  fancies 
himself  something  in  regard  to  it,  and  cultivates  it. 
Other  men  find  aesthetic  pleasure  in  his  creations, 
and  encourage  him  by  flattering  applause  which 
easily  rises  to  admiration.  That  calls  forth  an 

6 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

energetic  metamorphosis  in  the  inmost  processes 
of  his  work,  in  its  causes  and  aims.  What  was 
once  organic  necessity  now  becomes  craftsmanship ; 
uncontrollable  inspiration  is  replaced  by  custom  and 
by  style.  The  artist  becomes  his  own  imitator. 
In  years  of  cool,  methodical,  routine  work,  he  simply 
calls  to  mind  the  moment  when  the  feverish  work- 
ings of  his  brain  powerfully  drove  him  into  the 
paths  of  art.  He  observes  all  rites  of  the  creator 
by  impulse,  but  they  are  now  only  an  attitude 
which  he  has  learnt.  In  theory  he  is  still  inspired 
by  impulse ;  practically,  he  is  a  professional  crafts- 
man who  performs  the  day's  work  imposed  on  him 
by  intelligent  volition.  He  is  still  always  in  search 
of  self-satisfaction  whilst  engaged  on  works  of  art, 
but  it  is  of  another  nature  than  that  of  the  un- 
sophisticated artist.  The  unconscious  aim  of  his 
efforts  is  not  to  find  relief  from  an  emotional  tension  : 
he  strives  after  the  voluptuous  feeling  of  flattered 
amour propre;  he  grows  ambitious,  very  often,  indeed, 
only  vain.  He  thinks  of  his  public.  He  anticipates 
his  success.  The  thought  of  approbation  takes  the 
place  of  the  effort  to  deliver  himself  from  a  pain- 
fully obsessing  conception. 

This  also  is  always  the  psychology  of  the  born 
artist,  who  is  one  because  his  organisation  forces 
him  to  it.  Beside  him,  however,  swarms  the  in- 
numerable crowd  of  imitation  artists,  of  average, 
and  very  average  men,  who  would  never  of  them- 

7 


On  Art  and  Artists 

selves  have  thought  of  becoming  artists — men  who 
would  never  have  discovered  art  of  themselves,  if 
they  had  not  had  before  their  eyes  the  example  of 
the  original  artists,  their  successes,  their  recognition 
by  civilised  society.  These  individuals  pursue  art, 
not  to  deliver  themselves  from  an  obsessing  concep- 
tion, but  as  a  means  of  attaining  privileges,  gold, 
and  honours.  For  them  art  is  an  avocation  like 
any  other,  a  trade  learnt,  which  is  to  bring  them, 
not  to  subjective  psychological,  but  to  practical  and 
social  ends.  They  try  by  a  sort  of  mimicry  to 
become  like  the  original  artists,  but  they  belong  to 
another  species.  Nevertheless,  it  is  not  permissible  to 
neglect  them  in  this  consideration,  for,  for  one  thing, 
they  constitute  the  vast  majority  of  artists,  from  the 
moment  when  the  pursuit  of  art  has  become  a 
differentiated  activity,  the  habitual  and  exclusive 
occupation  of  a  separate  class  of  society ;  and 
then  the  productions  of  these  imitators  are  always 
modelled  after  works  done  through  organic  necessity. 
They  are,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  small  change  of 
originally  great  values ;  they  would  like  to  be 
changed  for  them,  and  everything  which  is  to  be 
said  of  any  particular  problem  of  art,  necessarily 
finds  its  application  to  the  imitations  as  well  as  to 
the  original  pictures. 

These  are  then  the  origins  and  stages  of  develop- 
ment of  art.  At  the  outset,  it  is  actually  what  the 
school  of  "art  for  art's  sake  "  asserts  of  it:  a  subjective 

8 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

purpose,  a  satisfaction  of  an  organic  need  on  the  part 
of  the  artist.  Soon,  however,  the  artist  ceases  to 
confine  himself  to  satisfying  himself  in  relieving 
himself;  he  also  seeks  to  please  others.  In  the 
most  secret  and  mysterious  moments  of  creation, 
the  thought  of  other  men  is  present  in  his  mind  ; 
considerations  as  to  effect  and  success  are  mixed 
with  his  productive  emotions.  Substitute  mere 
craftsmanship  for  inspiration,  then  these  considera- 
tions become  more  and  more  dominant,  and  when 
art  has  once  become  a  regular  ordinary  business, 
and  the  imitators,  the  mere  echoes  and  reflections, 
have  once  become  the  majority  among  those  who 
practise  it,  then  the  artist  has  his  eyes  continually 
fixed  on  his  tribunal,  viz.,  society.  In  the  moment 
his  work  of  art  is  germinating,  it  is  strongly  influenced 
by  consideration  of  the  known  or  the  supposed  taste 
of  the  society  whose  applause  the  artist  courts,  and 
the  work  undergoes  a  development  more  or  less 
remote  from  the  form  it  would  have  acquired  under 
the  pure  influence  of  emotion,  its  primary  source. 

Society  naturally  sees  what  place  it  occupies  in 
the  artist's  mind,  what  share  it  has  in  his  creations, 
and  how  important  to  him  its  verdict  is.  It  promptly 
perceives  its  advantage.  It  takes  possession  of  the 
artist,  forces  its  tastes  on  him,  and  insists  on  his 
working,  not  for  himself,  but  for  it.  Henceforward 
it  has  in  him  a  paid  servant ;  he  has  to  conform 
his  special  energy  to  the  general  plan  of  the  society 

9 


On  Art  and  Artists 

organism  of  which  he  is  a  part,  and,  in  this 
way,  a  manifestation  which  was  originally  a  purely 
subjective  performance  becomes  a  social  per- 
formance. 

Art,  engendered  by  individual  emotion  and  trans- 
figured into  a  social  work,  shares  this  lot  which  we 
have  no  right  to  call  a  degradation,  with  innumer- 
able other  main  instincts,  strivings,  desires.  It  is 
the  peculiarity  of  civilisation  that  it  subdues  to 
itself  human  emotions,  and  applies  them  as  motive 
powers  for  the  purpose  of  creating  results  which 
are  not  always,  which  are  not  even  frequently,  the 
natural  purpose  of  these  emotions.  The  whole 
existence  of  society,  every  organisation,  every 
civilisation,  rests  on  the  application  of  this  method  ; 
in  fact,  every  attitude  and  action  of  man  is  affected 
by  an  emotion  at  its  base.  Without  emotion,  man 
is  a  sluggish  mass,  with  which  nothing  can  be  done. 
In  order  to  get  anything  from  him,  he  must  first 
have  his  mind  excited,  and  after  that  we  must  be 
able  to  direct  this  excitement.  All  usages  and 
regulations  are  merely  a  collection  of  channels  dug 
in  order  to  act  as  conduits  to  the  emotions,  and 
to  utilise  their  force  in  regular  employment.  By 
the  help  of  the  emotions  of  love,  society  has  been 
enabled  to  create  marriage,  which  does  not  serve 
for  the  satisfaction  of  the  instinct,  but  should 
guarantee  economic  security  for  the  wife  and 
children.  With  the  emotion  of  sympathy  —  this 

10 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

preliminary  condition  of  every  social  structure — with 
this  fount  of  pity,  altruism,  and  solidarity,  man- 
kind has  created  the  political  order,  the  State,  with 
all  its  burdensome  tyranny,  which  seems  no  longer 
to  have  anything  at  all  in  common  with  sympathy, 
which  is,  nevertheless,  its  emotional  root.  With  the 
emotion  of  mysticism  and  superstition,  society  has 
produced  practical  morality  and  all  its  constraint ; 
with  self-love  and  vanity,  patriotism  and  its  caricature, 
Chauvinism  ;  with  the  wicked  impulses  to  destruction 
and  murder,  the  professional  qualities  of  the  soldier, 
still  indispensable  for  the  security  of  the  political 
organism.  In  short,  the  whole  work  of  civilisation 
consists  in  making  itself  master  of  individual 
emotions,  diverting  them  from  their  natural  goals, 
applying  them  to  the  good  of  the  whole  body. 
The  State  society  is  a  machine  that  is  moved  only 
by  the  emotions  of  individuals.  Social  life  is  simply 
the  product  of  a  very  complex  and  skilfully  con- 
ducted work  of  primitive  emotions.  If,  therefore, 
any  one  exclaims  slightingly  at  the  mention  of  the 
social  productions  of  art :  "  That's  common,  rank 
utilitarianism ! "  we  are  justified  in  shrugging  our 
shoulders.  Utilitarianism  ?  Why,  certainly.  Utility 
is  the  primary  law  of  every  society,  of  every  living 
organism.  The  lowest  living  creature  of  one  cell 
could  not  support  itself  for  a  single  instant,  unless 
all  its  parts  were  continually  working  with  the 
object  of  promoting  its  existence,  of  serving  the 

ii 


On  Art  and  Artists 

demands  of  its  life  —  in  short,  making  themselves 
useful  to  the  whole. 

When  men  came  to  observe  that  they  possessed 
among  them  beings  who  had  stronger  emotions  than 
the  rest,  and  made  these  emotions  evident  by  creations 
which  were  calculated  to  make  a  deep  impression 
on  other  men,  they,  according  to  the  standing  rule 
— I  might  say,  according  to  the  biological  rule — 
of  society,  made  haste  to  place  these  exceptional 
natures,  these  artists,  in  the  service  of  the  great 
interests  of  society. 

Whoever  can  still  entertain  a  doubt  that  art  has 
always  performed  a  task  which  was  by  no  means 
aesthetic,  even  if  fulfilled  by  aesthetic  means,  let  him 
cast  a  glance  at  the  history  of  the  arts. 

Let  him  read  the  poems  of  antiquity,  gaze  on 
the  sculptures  and  paintings  of  the  Egyptians  or 
Assyrians  or  Greeks.  Let  him  listen  to  the  far-off, 
and  doubtless  sadly  distorted  echo  of  ancient  music 
in  the  Hymn  to  Apollo,  restored  by  over-daring 
scholarship.  Where  will  he  find  a  work — a  single 
work  —  which  corresponds  with  the  psychological 
scheme  of  the  origin  of  artistic  creation  and  with 
the  definitions  of  the  party  of  "  Art  for  art's  sake  "  ? 
Where  is  the  work  that  has  been  achieved  purely 
for  self-satisfaction,  for  the  relief  of  the  artist's 
nerves?  Where  is  the  work  that  is  only  to  serve 
beauty  ?  I  cannot  see  it ;  but  what  I  do  see  is 
that  all  known  works  serve  some  purpose  of  society. 

12 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

They  glorify  the  gods,  the  kings,  the  commonwealth. 
They  extol  the  dignity  of  belief,  of  government, 
of  the  mother-country.  Homer  shows  the  heroes 
of  the  Hellenic  race  in  the  bloody  apotheosis  of 
their  exploits.  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides 
unfold  on  the  stage  the  myths  and  sagas  of  their 
ancestors.  On  the  Acropolis,  in  the  Parthenon, 
gleam  the  gods  of  the  mother-country,  the  guardians 
of  the  commonwealth,  shaped  by  the  magic  chisel 
of  Phidias.  The  Stoa,  the  Poikile,  the  Stadium,  are 
peopled  with  the  monuments  of  athletes,  warriors, 
archons,  legislators,  of  all  great  men  who  are  the 
people's  pride,  and  are  to  serve  them  as  models. 
Tyrtasus  chants  his  sublime  marches  to  excite  the 
warriors  to  fight  for  their  country.  The  singer  of 
the  Hymn  to  Apollo  composes  his  cantatas  to 
make  the  temple  service  more  impressive.  I  am 
well  aware  that,  besides  these  monuments,  there  are 
the  little  lyric  poems  of  the  Anthology,  the  charming 
little  Tanagra  figures,  that  is  to  say,  very  individual 
revelations,  which  sing  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  a 
single  soul,  which  seize  the  graceful  movements  and 
gait  of  young  women  who  had  enraptured  a  single 
kneader  of  the  clay.  But  these  pretty  little  things, 
although  chef  dosuvres  of  their  kind,  are  not,  how- 
ever, to  be  compared  with  the  triumphant  creations 
prompted  by  religious  belief  and  patriotism,  whose 
superhuman  splendour  fills  the  centuries. 

If  we  go  from  pagan  antiquity  to  the  Christian 
13 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Middle  Ages  and  the  free-thinking  or  the  openly 
atheistic  Renaissance,  the  role  of  art  remains  un- 
changed. For  whom  does  the  artist  work?  Only 
for  the  Church  and  the  palace.  The  pope,  the 
bishop,  the  abbot  demand  of  him  the  decoration  of 
the  cathedral  and  monastery.  The  priest  under  the 
vaulted  arch,  the  monk  in  his  refectory — these  must 
have  before  their  eyes  images  to  remind  them  of 
the  doctrines  of  which  they  are  preachers  and 
servants.  The  people,  when  they  enter  God's  house, 
must  be  caught  hold  of  by  the  representations  of 
suffering  and  martyrdoms,  of  beneficent  and  comfort- 
ing miracles,  of  the  horrors  of  hell  and  the  bliss  of 
paradise,  and  be  strengthened  in  their  faith,  seeing 
with  their  eyes  and  touching  with  their  hands  what 
religion  teaches.  The  king's  castle,  the  palace  of 
the  great  vassals,  plume  themselves  on  the  works 
of  arts  that  are  consecrated  to  the  glory  of  their 
ancestors,  of  their  rank,  or,  simply,  of  the  dominant 
system.  Here  the  stately  tombs  of  kings  or  knights, 
here  the  statues  showing  the  ancestor  as  hero  or 
demi-god.  Here  the  pictures  of  battles  and  sieges, 
of  butcheries  and  victories.  Here  the  painted 
memorials  of  great  state  ceremonies,  triumphal 
entries,  receptions  of  ambassadors,  conclusions  of 
advantageous  treaties,  famous  meetings  of  mighty 
lords.  The  object  of  all  this  art  is  always  to  flatter 
the  vanity  of  the  great,  to  impose  on  the  populace 
a  high  notion  of  their  wealth  and  power,  to  make 

'4 


The  Social   Mission  of  Art 

it  feel,  by  all  possible  means  of  expression,  the 
superiority  of  its  leaders.  We  must  go  down  to 
the  Italian  Renaissance  in  order  to  discover,  by  the 
side  of  religious,  dynastic,  aristocratic,  and  political 
art — for  historical  art  was  always  designed  to  serve  a 
political  idea  or  arrangement — in  order  to  discover,  I 
say,  by  the  side  of  this  prescriptive  art,  the  beginning 
of  a  purely  aesthetic  art.  When  Mantegna  paints  the 
"  Muses  on  Olympus,"  or  Leonardo  the  "  Mona  Lisa," 
they  are  no  longer  desirous  of  kindling  faith  or 
strengthening  subjects  in  obedience,  but  they  want 
to  enrich  and  brighten  existence.  But  whose  exist- 
ence ?  That  of  a  wealthy  and  distinguished  patron, 
of  him  who  has  placed  the  order  with  them.  It  is  not 
before  the  Renaissance  that  we  see  the  artist  gradually 
emancipate  himself  from  the  rule  that  sternly  dictates 
to  him  the  choice  of  his  theme,  and  even,  up  to  a 
certain  point,  the  method  of  his  treatment.  He 
then  acquired  to  some  degree  the  freedom  to  follow 
his  own  power  of  imagination,  and  could  hope  to 
get  a  return  for  his  creations,  even  if  he  did  not 
serve  a  dogma  or  a  policy,  even  if  he  did  not 
glorify  a  saint,  a  king,  or  a  nobleman ;  if  he  simply 
tried  to  move  a  man's  soul  by  revealing  the  secret 
movements  of  a  human  soul. 

We  see  then  that,  through  long  centuries,  art  had 
the  sole  task  to  serve  the  great  institutions  of  society: 
religion,  monarchy,  or  one's  native  country  under 
another  form  of  government,  the  dominant  castes. 

15 


On  Art  and  Artists 

The  mechanism  by  which  art  was  held  in  bondage 
was  the  simplest  and  most  naive :  the  artist  had  no 
other  customer  for  his  works  except  the  powers  that 
be.  These  bound  him  by  his  necessity  to  eat 
daily,  or  nearly  so.  The  Church,  the  king,  the 
republic,  the  city,  the  ruler,  gave  the  artist  com- 
missions, and  paid  him.  If  he  found  no  patron  in 
the  castle  or  palace,  he  had  no  gold  or  honour  to 
hope  for  from  any  other  quarter.  Now  neither  the 
Church,  nor  the  Government,  nor  the  privileged 
classes  were  in  the  habit  of  throwing  their  money 
out  of  the  window.  The  money  they  expended  had 
to  bring  them  profit.  They  wanted  the  artist  in 
their  pay  to  become  a  champion  for  their  cause, 
in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  cross-bowmen  of 
their  body-guard,  their  judge,  their  herald,  steward, 
aye,  their  jailer  and  executioner.  Art,  in  those 
days,  preached  the  fear  of  God  and  his  servants, 
submission  to  the  king  and  the  State,  respect  for 
nobles  and  officials.  The  ruling  powers  made  the 
artist  suggest  to  the  people  all  that  was  favour- 
able to  them.  Art  was  the  school  of  the  good 
subject,  the  artist  the  main  prop  of  priestly  and 
monarchical-aristocratic  society.  The  common  herd, 
the  million,  found  none  of  their  human  emotions 
satisfied  in  art ;  the  voices  that  rang  out  of  these 
works  only  cried  to  them :  "  Pray,  obey,  tremble." 

The  Netherlanders,  a  free  people,  were  the   first 
to  know  an  art  other  than  the  traditional  one.     In 


The  Social   Mission  of  Art 

Flanders  and  Holland,  writers,  and  especially  painters, 
began  to  speak  no  longer  exclusively  of  God  and  the 
saints,  the  king  and  the  great,  but  of  the  humble, 
obscure,  and  nameless  multitude.  Genre  painting 
revived  for  the  first  time  since  ancient  days.  It  told 
the  everyday  life  of  the  middle  and  lower  classes, 
their  somewhat  gross  joys,  their  somewhat  common- 
place sorrows  ;  it  showed  the  ale-house  and  the 
mill,  the  sitting-room  and  the  retail  shop.  This 
was  not  edifying,  it  is  true.  The  philosophy  of  this 
art  is  low ;  it  hardly  widens  the  spiritual  horizon, 
and  is  of  poor  comfort  amid  the  narrowness  and 
bitterness  of  real  life.  And  yet  this  art  was  a  fore- 
runner. It  denoted  a  turning-point,  the  beginning 
of  great  and  important  things.  One  great  king, 
Lewis  XIV.,  was  not  deceived  about  it.  With  the 
sharpened  keen  feeling  of  the  mighty  for  everything 
that  can  encroach  on  their  superhuman  dignity,  he 
perceived  at  once  that  this  new  art  offended  against 
his  kingly  majesty.  How  ?  There  are  painters  who 
dare  to  treat  of  plebeian  subjects !  What  should 
that  mean?  Does  art  perhaps  even  fancy  that  it 
can  be  other  than  a  continual  homage  to  the  great- 
ness and  omnipotence  of  kings?  And,  with  an 
annihilating  wave  of  his  hand,  he  banished  from  his 
august  presence  these  daring  little  pictures,  these 
democratic  works  of  Teniers,  Ostade,  Dirk  Hals,  and 
Gerard  Dow,  whilst  uttering  the  historic  words : 
"  Enlevez-moi  ces  grotesques" 

17  B 


On  Art  and  Artists 

But  time  stands  not  still ;  development  is  achieved. 
Modern  democracy  appears,  and  transposes  all  the 
conditions  of  existence  of  society  and  its  members. 
Art  cannot  escape  the  general  revolution.  It  experi- 
ences its  influence  spiritually  and  economically ; 
changes  its  judgment  hall  and  its  mart.  We  do 
not  realise  the  tremendous  meaning  of  this  change. 
The  court  that  decided  as  to  the  worth  of  the  artist 
and  his  work  was  formerly  the  small  circle  of 
possible  patrons — princes  of  the  Church,  the  great, 
the  courtiers.  To-day  this  court  is  criticism,  pro- 
fessional criticism.  In  earlier  times  it  was  enough 
for  the  artist  to  please  a  few  people,  perhaps  only 
one  individual,  if  the  latter  happened  to  be  a 
magnate.  He  had  not  to  trouble  himself  about 
the  crowd ;  moreover,  the  crowd  followed  docilely 
the  lead  from  above.  When  Dante  said : 

"  Credete  Cimabue  nella  pintura 
Tener  lo  campo,  ed  ora  ha  Giotto  il  grido, 
Si  che  la  fama  di  colui  oscura  ;" — 

What  did  grido  mean?  What  was  fama?  It  was 
the  opinion  of  a  court,  that  of  Rome  or  Pisa,  perhaps 
of  Ravenna.  We  must  go  to  Aretino  to  discover 
a  specimen  of  an  art  critic  who  was  neither  a 
Maecenas  like  Leo  X.  or  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  or 
even  a  painter  like  Vasari,  but  merely  an  audacious 
spirit  who  arrogated  to  himself  the  right  of  dealing 
out  praise  and  blame,  and  conferring  glory  in  the 

18 


The  Social   Mission  of  Art 

name  of  something  absolutely  novel,  in  the  name 
of  public  opinion. 

From  that  time  it  is  professional  criticism  which 
suggests  to  the  multitude,  and  imposes  on  the  mighty, 
its  judgment  on  the  artist.  But  the  criticism  is  dis- 
interested, or  at  least  can  be  so.  It  does  not  expect 
of  the  work  of  art  a  direct  personal  advantage,  its  own 
glorification,  the  vindication  of  its  spiritual  and  material 
influence.  Its  measure,  therefore,  grows  larger  and 
broader.  It  brings  to  its  office  philosophical  and 
aesthetic  considerations,  which  the  popes  and  kings 
could  not  know  when  they  gave  commissions  to  the 
artists,  their  proteges.  In  order  to  secure  success,  the 
artist  must  now  please  the  critic — many  critics — and 
the  latter  pass  a  verdict  on  him  with  perceptions,  with 
taste  and  spiritual  prepossessions  that  very  seldom  are 
those  of  the  bishops  and  great  men. 

And  as  the  artist  has  got  another  tribunal,  he 
also  comes  before  the  public  under  other  material 
and  spiritual  conditions,  and  seeks  in  other  ways  a 
market  for  his  work. 

In  feudal  times,  as  we  have  seen,  the  church  and 
palace  were  the  places  for  works  of  art.  They  were 
seen  there  under  circumstances  little  favourable  for 
a  purely  aesthetic  appreciation.  In  the  cathedral 
people  were  intimidated  by  the  significance  of  the 
vast  space,  the  acts  of  faith,  and  the  perfume  of 
incense ;  in  the  castle,  by  the  magnificent  garments 
of  the  officials,  and  the  weapons  of  the  guard.  It  was 

19 


On  Art  and  Artists 

in  1673  that  a  "Salon,"  i.e.,  a  regular  art-exhibition, 
was  opened  in  Paris ;  and  besides  the  "  Salon " 
public  museums  were  opened  everywhere,  to  which 
every  one  had  access  without  invitation  or  introduc- 
tion. The  artist  was  now  quite  independent ;  he 
could  work  without  waiting  for  orders.  He  no  more 
needed,  in  order  to  become  known,  to  crave  humbly 
a  visit  to  his  possibly  poverty-stricken  studio.  Here 
was  a  definite  place  where  he  could  exhibit  his  work 
to  thousands  of  spectators  —  connoisseurs,  judges, 
possible  buyers.  From  that  time  he  worked  with  an 
eye  to  the  great  public  which  was  sure  not  to  be 
lacking  at  his  regular  rendezvous.  If  the  professional 
critic  became  his  judge,  the  mass  of  people  became  his 
Maecenas.  Universal  suffrage  has  dethroned  Church 
and  royalty,  and  remains  the  artist's  only  patron. 

I  say  expressly — the  only.  It  still  happens  that  the 
State,  i.e.,  a  high  official,  perhaps  a  monarch,  orders 
works,  assigns  to  the  artist  the  task  of  adorning 
churches  and  palaces,  perhaps  even  public  places 
and  walks,  or  even  creating  a  monument  of  political 
import.  But  who  receives  these  commissions?  The 
artist  pointed  out  by  public  opinion,  i.e.,  the  democratic 
crowd  acting  under  the  suggestion  of  the  critics,  who 
also  belong  to  the  crowd.  The  artist  who  has  gained 
the  advantage  of  an  officially  favoured  position  other- 
wise than  by  popular  acclamation,  who  owes  it  to  the 
whim  of  a  ruler,  the  mere  favouritism  of  a  bishop 
or  some  other  great  personage,  is  nowadays  not 

20 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

esteemed,  but  despised.  He  may  receive  some  alms 
in  the  shape  of  money ;  he  may  collect  ridiculous 
titles  and  wretched  tags  of  coloured  ribbons,  but  he 
will  be  branded  with  the  name  of  court-artist,  and 
this  name  excludes  him  irredeemably  from  fame. 

The  literary  man  in  earlier  times  lived  by  the 
favour  of  a  protector,  whom  alone  he  had  to  trouble 
about  pleasing.  Nowadays  he  lives,  through  news- 
papers and  books,  by  the  public  at  large.  The 
dramatic  poet  had,  for  his  productions,  only  the  sub- 
sidised theatre,  the  theatre  royal,  which  imposed  on 
him  its  regulations.  To-day  this  theatre  is  insignificant 
as  compared  with  the  free  and  independent  stage, 
and  the  poet  need  know  no  other  care  and  con- 
sideration than  that  of  getting  a  good  grip  on 
his  public.  Then  the  artist  had  nothing  to  hope 
for,  unless  he  served  religion,  the  monarchy,  or 
the  aristocracy.  Now  subjects  from  these  spheres 
have  actually  become  laughing-stocks — pompiers,  as 
they  are  termed  with  an  expression  of  contempt ; 
and  the  artist,  if  he  would  become  rich  and 
famous,  must  fish  for  his  subjects  in  other  streams 
of  thought.  This  is  so  true  that  there  are  rulers 
who,  from  feeling  that  art  is  making  itself  inde- 
pendent of  them,  and  will  no  longer  serve  as  the 
herald  of  their  thoughts,  try  even  to  produce  works 
of  art,  and  would  impress  their  works  on  the 
admiration  of  the  multitude,  which,  nevertheless, 
does  not  admire. 

21 


On  Art  and  Artists 

The  great  revolution  is  consequently  accomplished  ; 
art  now  works  only  for  the  masses.  It  is  still  always 
the  State  that  commissions ;  it  is  still  always  the 
few  rich  who  buy ;  but  it  is  really  universal  suffrage 
that  imposes  on  them  its  own  inclinations.  But 
we  do  not  believe  that  that  new  Maecenas,  the  people 
at  large,  has  other  habits  of  mind  or  ways  of 
acting  than  had  the  Maecenas  of  the  past.  The 
people  too,  exactly  like  the  priests  and  kings  of 
old,  demands  that  art  should  please  and  flatter  it. 
But  it  further  demands  something  else,  something 
more  than  pleasure  and  obsequiousness  —  viz.,  a 
high  satisfaction,  a  corrective  of  an  evil  of  which 
it  is  perhaps  not  clearly  conscious,  but  which,  never- 
theless, it  feels  strongly.  And  I  will  now  try  to 
point  out  this  evil. 

One  of  the  most  striking  phenomena  of  modern  life 
is  specialisation  applied  to  all  departments.  Every 
one  tills  merely  a  very  little  bit  of  field  or  rather  he 
ploughs  only  one  and  the  same  furrow.  This  is  true 
of  mental  craftsmen.  It  is  still  more  true  of  handi- 
craftsmen. What  existence  does  such  a  man  lead 
nowadays  ?  There  is  no  longer  one  who  fabricates 
an  entire  chair.  One  always  makes  the  arms, 
another  the  legs,  a  third  the  back,  a  fourth  the 
cane-work.  A  knife  goes  through  a  dozen  hands, 
a  needle,  I  believe,  through  thirty.  In  order  to 
attain1  that  extreme  skill  which  competition  demands 
of  him  and  which  he  must  supply,  if  he  would  earn 

22 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

his  bread,  the  workman  continually  repeats  the 
movement,  becomes  a  machine,  less  than  a  machine, 
a  tiny  part  of  a  machine,  a  single  wheel,  a  single 
screw.  His  being  shrivels  up,  his  soul  suffers. 
All  development  is  denied  him ;  all  his  faculties, 
except  the  one  he  is  always  employing,  become 
crippled,  and  disappear.  The  man  gradually  sinks 
almost  to  the  low  level  of  a  polypus,  which  is 
only  an  organ  of  a  hydramedusa. 

Whence  comes  the  strange  fascination  that  the 
foremost  men  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  exercise 
on  us?  The  reason  is  that  they  were  complete 
men.  All  their  faculties  were  fully  developed — all 
that  offered  a  possibility  in  them  was  developed 
to  the  utmost.  Nothing  human  was  alien  to  them. 
With  marvellous  freedom  they  circumscribed  the 
whole  circle  of  human  knowledge  and  faculties. 
Then  the  learned  man  was  an  universal  scholar ; 
his  knowledge  was  encyclopaedic.  The  poets  were 
at  the  same  time  men  of  action.  Men  of  rank 
were  artists  and  writers,  and  the  artists  were  all 
they  wished  to  be.  Michael  Angelo  painted, 
modelled,  built  the  cupola  of  St  Peter's,  and  wrote 
charming  verses.  Benvenuto  Cellini  handled  the 
spatula  as  well  as  the  mallet,  the  crayon  as  well  as 
the  pen,  and  the  sword  as  well  as  all  these  tools. 
Macchiavelli  governed  as  wonderfully  as  he  wrote, 
and  Leonardo  painted  the  "  Last  Supper "  between 
a  musical  composition,  a  treatise  on  mechanics,  a 

23 


On  Art  and  Artists 

plan  of  a  fortification,  the  model  of  a  triumphal  car, 
and  the  plan  of  a  canal  for  the  purpose  of  irrigation. 
Count  Castiglione's  "  Cortegiano  "  shows  us  the  ideal 
of  the  man  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance.  He 
was  probably  the  fairest  flower  ever  produced  by 
the  human  plant.  The  modern  man  may  envy 
him ;  he  can  never  be  his  peer,  but  must  shrivel 
up  in  his  narrow  corner.  Hypertrophy  of  a  single, 
often  'subordinate  faculty,  atrophy  of  all  the  rest — 
such  is  the  lot  to  which  he  is  ruthlessly  condemned. 
And  there  is  no  change  possible  in  respect  of  it ;  no 
herb  grown  can  prove  an  antidote  to  that  bane. 
Division  of  labour  gives  to  the  whole  advantages  too 
great  to  be  dispensed  with  out  of  consideration  for 
the  individual.  Division  of  labour  is  the  true 
condition  of  all  progress,  though  in  this  case,  as  in 
so  many  others,  progress  exacts  a  heavy,  very  heavy, 
price  for  its  services. 

Every  one  is  painfully  aware  of  this  reverse  side 
of  progress  ;  many  consciously  take  themselves  to 
task  for  it.  Why  has  the  madhouse  philosophy 
which  extols  the  superman  been  able  to  subjugate 
spirited  youth?  Because  it  meets  the  longing  for 
a  fuller  life  of  the  personality.  And  anarchism  ? 
What  is  the  secret  that  makes  it  attractive  to  true 
consciences  and  loving  hearts?  Nothing  except 
that  anarchy  seems  to  promise  unchecked  develop- 
ment of  the  individuality.  In  all  these  nonsensical, 
wild,  and  criminal  movements  there  is  some  little 

24 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

revolt  against  the  pinching  and  tightening  in  of  the 
personality  entailed  by  the  modern  conditions  of 
labour,  and  this  is  the  ingredient  that  recruits 
adherents  among  those  unaccustomed  to  rigorous 
examination  of  their  thoughts.  And  when  the 
workmen  demand  an  eight-hours'  day,  what  do 
they  want?  To  find  time  to  go  and  drink  at  the 
public  house,  to  be  able  to  idle,  as  the  ill-wishers 
who  calumniate  them  assert  ?  No ;  they  want  to 
have  a  few  hours  m  which  to  cease  to  be  mechanical 
tools,  in  which  they  may  again  be  men,  and  parti- 
cipate in  the  great  life  of  the  community. 

But  by  what  means  can  we  give  back  to  men 
what  division  of  labour  and  specialisation  —  these 
irrefragable  consequences  of  contemporary  progress — 
have  taken  from  them  ?  By  what  means  can  we 
remake  beings  developed  from  them  harmonic? 
Perhaps  in  a  very  distant  future  science  will  effect 
this  necessary,  demanded,  and  longed  for  miracle. 
Perhaps  mankind  will  once  more  see  these  workers 
who  earn  their  bread  during  a  part  of  the  day 
by  handicraft,  and  during  the  rest  of  the  time 
linger  on  the  highest  summits  of  human  thought 
and  knowledge ;  a  Socrates,  who  is  a  stonemason ; 
a  Spinoza,  who  polishes  spectacle  glasses.  But, 
as  I  have  said  before,  that  will  be  feasible  only 
in  a  very  remote  future,  for  science  is  not  easily 
accessible ;  the  way  leading  to  it  is  long  and 
rough,  and  the  full  life  through  science  is  possible 

25 


On  Art  and  Artists 

only  to  men  of  a  higher  spiritual  development  than 
the  average  people  nowadays. 

But  if  science  is  no  longer  the  usual  companion 
of  the  man  of  the  masses,  and,  unfortunately,  will  not 
be  so  for  a  long  time,  art,  on  the  other  hand,  admits 
him  .to  familiar  intercourse.  No  tedious  initiation 
is  requisite  for  it,  nor  any  hard  labours  which  the 
majority  cannot  perform.  It  is  sufficient  to  have 
eyes  and  ears,  and  a  human  heart  in  one's  breast. 
After  an  apprenticeship,  which  may  be  very  short ; 
after  some  habituation  which  one  easily  acquires  by 
intercourse  with  beautiful  works,  almost  every  one 
arrives  so  far  that,  even  if  he  cannot  appreciate  the 
technical  and  philosophical  merits  of  a  work  of  art 
with  consciousness,  yet  he  can  feel  its  charm  and  be 
susceptible  of  emotions  from  it. 

Art  it  is,  then,  which  can  give  to  modern  humanity 
what  it  most  needs — the  means  of  attaining  the  full 
life.  Here  lies,  unless  I  am  deceived,  the  greatness, 
the  lofty  mission  of  art  in  a  democratic  society 
which  rests  on  a  civilisation,  the  marks  of  which, 
the  real  condition  of  which,  are  severe  specialisation 
and  division  of  labour  carried  to  an  extreme. 

Art  raises  man  out  of  industrialism  and  introduces 
him  to  a  higher  world.  In  this  artist-created  world 
the  man  who  is  bundled  together  stretches  himself 
straight ;  the  shrivelled  broadens  out ;  the  fraction 
of  a  man  becomes  complete.  Here  he  who  belongs 
to  his  machine  or  observation-instrument  becomes 

26 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

once  more  a  free  man  and  citizen  of  the  world — 
a  man  participating  in  the  life  of  the  community, 
and  enjoying  with  the  rest  all  the  beauties  of 
heaven  and  earth,  all  the  greatness  of  heart  and 
soul  of  the  pick  of  men.  Through  art  a  person 
imprisoned  in  his  daily  avocation  comes  into  com- 
munion with  all  civilisation.  Here  is  the  paradise 
to  which  the  astronomer  descends  from  his  con- 
stellations, to  which  the  miner  ascends  from  his 
pit,  in  order  to  participate  in  the  same  joys  and 
raptures,  to  bring  to  flower  whatever  potentialities 
they  possess.  The  mission  of  art  in  society  present 
and  future  is,  in  short,  to  liberate  the  prisoner  of 
subdivided  labour,  to  restore  the  dignity  of  man- 
hood to  the  being  degraded  into  a  little  wheel  of 
a  machine. 

But  art,  which  is  to  fulfil  this  new  and  lofty 
mission,  cannot,  manifestly,  be  conventional  art. 
On  this  theocracy,  monarchy,  and  aristocracy 
have  stamped  the  character  that  suited  them.  The 
multitude  at  the  present  day  find  no  sort  of 
joy  in  works  which  depict  to  them  the  bliss  of 
paradise  and  the  torments  of  hell,  which  extol 
some  paste-board  king  with  crown  and  sceptre, 
which  offer  for  their  admiration  the  greatness  of 
blue-blooded  privileged  beings.  Like  the  patrons 
of  earlier  times,  the  people,  who  now  represent 
Maecenas  of  old,  are  interested  in  art  only  for 
themselves.  The  sources  of  their  emotions  in  art 

27 


On  Art  and  Artists 

are  the  emotions  of  their  own  lives.  In  the  work 
of  art  that  is  to  attract  them,  they  must  find  them- 
selves again,  but,  as  formerly  the  priest  and  king  did, 
magnified  and  ennobled.  The  work  of  art  must 
show  him  his  own  likeness,  but  a  beautiful  one ;  it 
must  raise  the  people  in  their  own  eyes,  and  teach 
them  to  respect  themselves. 

This  the  common  realism  has  not  comprehended, 
which  broke  in  on  art  with  a  din,  and  dared  to 
call  upon  the  democracy.  The  genuine  people  has 
never  had  a  mind  to  realism  of  this  sort,  but  has 
always  dismissed  it  roughly.  The  rough  proof  of 
a  hateful  and  tedious  reality,  such  as  the  pictures  of 
Courbet  or  Bastien  Lepage,  has  never  attracted  any 
but  the  superfine,  and  this  only,  by  the  well-known 
psychological  law  of  contrast,  whereby  an  impres- 
sion that  is  the  exact  opposite  of  the  usual  impression 
can  impart  a  pleasurable  feeling  for  a  short  time. 
The  rich  and  luxurious  like  to  see  works  of  ugliness 
and  misery ;  the  poor  and  afflicted  do  not  like  them. 
It  is  the  same  in  regard  to  literature.  Reluctant 
protests  have  frequently  become  loud,  in  these 
socialistic  days,  against  the  realism  which  a  party 
organ  offers  its  readers.  The  working  class  do  not 
wish  to  know  anything  about  this  realism  which 
professes  to  be  modern  and  democratic,  yet  is,  in 
reality,  only  wretched  and  repulsive.  It  coops  them 
up  in  the  narrowness  of  their  everyday  existence, 
but  their  wish  is  to  get  out  of  it. 

28 


The  Social  Mission  of  Art 

Pictures  such  as  Millet's,  sculptures  such  as 
Constantin  Meunier's — works  which  seek  to  show 
the  dignity  and  beauty  of  the  occupations  of  the 
masses,  which  constitute  a  hallowing  of  work,  an 
apotheosis  of  the  tragedies  and  idylls,  of  all  the  sweet 
and  bitter  emotions  of  the  people's  life — these  works, 
to  my  thinking,  exhibit  the  type  of  future  art. 

Some    great    genius   will,    perhaps,    find    another 
formula.     What  one  may,  however,  say  for  certain 
is   this,   that    the    art    of   the    future    will    not    be 
realistic  in  the   narrow  sense  of  the  word.    But  it 
will  not  be  mystical  and  aesthetic  either.     The  people 
will   never   interest   themselves   in   half-tone    angels 
of  boundless   length,   in   violet -hued    Virgins   with 
lilies    in    their    hands    in    a   conventional    bush,    in 
enigmatical,   mysterious   verses.      And    esoteric    art 
will    never    give   the   people    what  they   need,   viz., 
the  liberating   ideal.     The   art  of  the   cultivator   of 
the  Ego,  the  dilletante,  of  the   snobs   of  a   Talmi- 
aristocracy,    presumes    to    demand    the    future    for 
itself.     Is  that  to  be   an   art  of  the  future,  an  art 
of  progress?     One   can    only   laugh  at   the   notion. 
The   art   of  the   future   will   be   no   "little   chapel," 
but  a  mighty  cathedral,  wide  enough  to  admit  the 
whole  of  mankind.     And   that   will   be   exactly   its 
vocation  :   to  be  the  hallowed   place  wherein  man- 
kind  will   rise  again   to   the   childship   of  Cod   for 
which   religion   has   educated    them   in   past   stages 
of  evolution. 

29 


II 

SOCIALISTIC    ART 

CONSTANTIN   MEUNIER 

Is  there  a  socialistic  art?  Can  such  a  thing  exist? 
So  far  as  Socialism  is  an  economic  and  political 
philosophy  it  is  hardly  comprehensible  with  the 
means  of  expression  of  art.  If  the  plastic  arts 
are  to  be  instructive,  they  do  not  amount  to  more 
than  chill  symbols  and  halting  allegories.  On  the 
other  hand,  they  are  not  prevented  from  digging 
down  to  the  psychical  roots  of  Socialism,  and  present- 
ing the  fundamental  feelings  and  ultimate  intuitions 
from  which  it  springs.  One  of  these  fundamental 
feelings  is  pity  for  the  disinherited.  One  of  the 
ultimate  intuitions  is  that  of  the  dignity  of  all 
work  done  with  moral  earnestness  and  entire 
devotion. 

The  artist  can  show  us  the  destitute,  to 
whose  presence  amidst  our  civilisation  applies  more 
sharply,  what  the  Psalmist1  asserts  of  the  life  of 

1  Ps.  xc.  10  in  Luther's  version. 
30 


Socialistic  Art— Constantin  Meunier 

man  in  general :  "  And  if  it  has  been  splendid,  it 
has  been  toil  and  labour" — toil  and  labour  with- 
out a  ray  of  happiness ;  severe  physical  exertion 
rendered  more  wretched  by  sorrow  and  distress. 
Such  a  picture  grips  our  hearts,  and  urges  on  us 
painful  questions :  is  this  misery  inevitable  ?  Is  it 
cruelly  ordained  by  nature  herself  or  a  consequence 
of  faulty  institutions,  capable  of  improvement  on 
the  part  of  man  ?  Cannot  we  introduce  into  the 
lot  of  this  ill-used  brother  something  of  joy  ? 

And  the  artist  can  also  show  us  the  worker,  not 
in  want  and  suffering,  like  the  beast  of  burden, 
humiliated  into  the  slave  of  matter,  but  rather  as 
creating  eagerly,  proud  of  displaying  his  strength, 
joyful  in  the  conviction  of  success,  regarding  his 
skill  as  his  honour.  This  aspect  fills  us  with 
respect,  perhaps  with  admiration.  It  opens  to  us 
the  comprehension  of  the  import  of  the  workman, 
and  the  lofty  reality  of  his  achievement. 

In  both  cases  the  artist  fashions  fully  from  life ; 
he  need  not  exaggerate,  he  need  add  nothing ;  he 
can  confine  himself  to  the  plain  facts  of  life.  He 
need  not  betray  any  prejudice  or  any  extra-artistic 
aim.  He  will,  nevertheless,  so  contrive  that  one 
will  be  able  to  speak  without  falsification  of  his 
art  as  of  a  socialistic  one.  For  his  work  will 
put  the  spectator  in  the  mood  in  which  he  will 
be  inclined  to  hail  as  progress  every  transforma- 


On  Art  and  Artists 

tion    which    can    improve    the    earthly    lot   of    the 
worker,  and  increase  his  value  in  the  community. 

The  school  of  aesthetes,  which  maintains  the 
principle  of  art  for  art's  sake,  will,  I  grant,  admit 
works  of  this  sort  as  a  form  of  Socialism,  indeed, 
but  not  as  a  form  of  art.  I  do  not  belong  to 
this  school.  I  oppose  it  at  all  times  and  every- 
where as  strongly  as  I  am  able.  I  am  convinced 
that  art  has  a  social  mission  which  reaches  far 
beyond  mere  gratification,  that  it  must  necessarily 
be  moral,  and,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word, 
useful ;  not  useful  in  the  simple  way  of  painted 
or  chiselled  aids  to  intelligence,  not  moral  in  the 
vulgar  way  of  tracts  ;  but  moral  through  stimulating 
what  is  most  human  and  noble  in  our  spirit  and 
soul,  and  useful  through  educating  us  to  deeper 
and  wider  conceptions  of  phenomena.  In  one 
point,  however,  I  agree  with  the  heralds  of  r<zrt 
pour  fart — I  demand  beauty  in  a  work  of  art ; 
not  beauty  alone,  but  beauty  in  the  first  place. 

In  order,  then,  that  we  can  speak  of  a  Socialistic 
art,  the  works  that  would  deserve  this  designation 
must  not  only  excite  sympathy  with  the  disinherited, 
and  respect  for  the  workman,  but  they  must  also 
arouse  aesthetic  feeling,  they  must  be  beautiful.  This 
claim,  of  course,  excludes  no  kind  of  beauty.  The 
tragic  is  absolutely  beautiful.  Purification  is  one 
of  the  most  powerful  aesthetic  influences.  Truth 
can  be  beautiful  if  essential  and  expressive.  The 

32 


Socialistic  Art— Constantin  Meunier 

socialist  who  would  prove  himself  an  artist  must 
possess  the  lucky  gift  to  see  and  exhibit  beauty  in 
the  figures  and  actions  of  the  class  of  society  for 
which  his  heart  beats. 

All  these  conditions  no  contemporary  artist  known 
to  me  fulfils  in  the  same  degree  as  Constantin 
Meunier,  the  Belgian  sculptor,  painter,  and  draughts- 
man. Meunier  died  an  old  man  in  1905.  He  was 
born  in  the  'thirties'  of  the  last  century.  The  world 
was  slow  to  recognise  him,  not  because  he  did  not 
deserve  recognition,  but  because  he  did  not  seek  it. 
He  was  big  and  unassuming.  He  lived  quietly  in 
a  little  Belgian  town  as  a  teacher  in  an  art  school, 
and  modestly  avoided  the  roar  of  fame's  mart.  He 
had  even  refused  to  allow  the  reproduction  of  one 
of  his  noble  bronzes,  for  business  purposes,  by  a 
first-rate  Paris  house  which  was  prepared  to  pay  a 
munificent  price  for  the  right  of  sale.  He  was  loth 
that  his  piece  should  become  a  factory-cast  and  a 
shop-window  article.  He  belongs  to  the  narrowest 
circle  of  the  blessed,  of  the  chosen.  He  is  one  of 
the  Prometheus-like  artists ;  he  informs  and  inspires 
life.  He  feels  like  a  Samaritan,  he  thinks  like  an 
apostle  of  the  submerged,  who  utters  a  great  cry 
of  wrath  over  the  harshness  and  unrighteousness  of 
the  social  scheme,  and  he  compels  the  bronze,  like 
a  Benvenuto  Cellini,  translated  from  what  was 
aristocratic  and  classic  into  that  which  is  modern 
and  democratic. 

33  C 


On  Art  and  Artists 

In  Meunier's  work  there  is  a  unity  from  which  he 
seldom  digresses.  He  lived  in  a  Belgian  district  of 
coal-pits  and  smelting  furnaces,  in  the  very  midst 
of  rough  labourers  who  passed  their  lives  in  the 
galleries  of  mines,  or  in  the  fiery  glow  of  furnace 
mouths.  He  found  his  models  among  these  figures. 
There  the  Labour  movement  in  Belgium  arose  — 
one  of  the  most  rapid  in  Europe ;  there  Meunier's 
art  grew  up  —  one  of  the  most  intensive  at  the 
present  time.  The  miner  and  the  iron-smelter  are 
his  heroes ;  he  admires  their  strength,  and  from 
the  bottom  of  his  heart  he  bewails  their  pains.  And 
if  he  is  unfaithful  to  his  Cyclopses,  it  is  only,  touched 
and  enraptured,  to  look  after  his  other  darlings  — 
the  country  folk  working  in  the  fields,  a  subject  which 
instils  in  him  as  much  reverence  as  the  burrowing 
of  the  coal-miners  underground,  and  the  powerful 
hammer-strokes  of  the  iron-smiths. 

One  of  his  greatest  creations,  perhaps  his  grestest 
is  a  bronze  a  span  high,  representing  an  old  woman, 
the  wife  or,  as  I  would  rather  assume  from  the 
stormy  intensity  of  her  emotion,  the  mother  of 
a  miner,  who,  after  a  driving  storm,  has  gone  to 
the  mouth  of  the  shaft  of  a  coal-pit,  to  which  the 
corpse  of  some  one  belonging  to  her  has  been 
brought. 

The  woman  stands  there,  leaning  slightly  forward, 
her  countenance  petrified  with  dumb  despair,  her 
arms  limp,  her  one  hand  lying  in  the  other,  yet 

34 


Socialistic  Art — Constantin   Meunier 

without  any  convulsion,  and  powerless,  her  knees 
through  a  very  slight  bend  betraying  her  trembling, 
her  feet  instinctively  somewhat  turned  inwards,  so 
as  to  give  a  broader  support  to  the  body,  and  to 
protect  the  almost  crippled  figure  from  falling  down. 
The  whole  is  such  a  frightfully  expressive  picture 
of  a  poor  human  creature  who  has,  as  it  were, 
received  a  blow  on  the  head,  and  in  her  crushed 
condition  is  not  strong  enough  even  for  sobbing 
and  wringing  her  hands,  that  it  strikes  the  spectator 
with  a  cold  shudder.  Observe,  the  old  woman 
wears  the  garments  of  the  poor  Walloons,  heavy, 
stiff  gowns  and  neckerchiefs,  the  hard  angles  and 
folds  of  which  can  express  only  very  roughly  and 
indistinctly  the  soft  play  of  the  weakly-quivering 
muscles.  What  penetrating  keenness  of  observation 
does  it  need  to  recognise  in  an  entirely  self- 
contained  form  shrouded  in  uncouth,  shapeless 
clothes,  without  gestures  or  play  of  features,  and 
to  imitate,  without  the  slightest  exaggeration,  yet 
overpoweringly,  the  tenderest  lines  which,  even  in 
such  unfavourable  conditions  of  material,  express 
clearly  and  dramatically  all  that  is  passing  in  this 
almost  impenetrably  veiled  human  soul.  This  little 
figure,  no  larger  than  the  decoration  of  a  clock,  is 
a  great  monument,  and,  like  every  real  work  of  art,  it 
points  far  beyond  the  limits  of  itself.  It  reveals  much 
more  to  the  power  of  imagination  than  it  manifests 
to  the  eye.  This  is  actually  proved  in  this  very  case  ; 

35 


On  Art  and  Artists 

for  Meunier  has  a  group  which  supplements  the 
work  described :  the  same  old  woman,  and  before 
her,  lying  outstretched  on  the  ground,  the  corpse 
of  him  whom  she  is  bewailing.  We  might  think  that 
this  more  complete  work  would  be  more  deeply 
affecting  than  the  fragmentary  one.  The  contrary, 
however,  is  the  case.  The  corpse,  although  modelled 
so  exquisitely,  leaves  us  cold  ;  it  does  not  realise  the 
conception  we  have  formed  of  it.  We  had  expected 
to  feel  a  horror  at  the  sight  of  it,  at  which  the 
blood  would  congeal  in  our  veins.  We  are  astonished 
and  disappointed  at  seeing  lying  there  only  an 
unknown  man  who  does  not  concern  us.  When  we 
look  at  the  old  woman  petrified  by  grief  we  think 
of  the  corpse  which  is  not  exhibited  to  us ;  we  see 
it  with  our  spiritual  eyes  in  the  horror  of  the  old 
woman,  we  share  the  feelings  of  the  old  woman,  the 
unseen  corpse  is  that  of  a  relation  of  our  own,  the 
dead  man  himself  is  dear  to  us,  we  ourselves  have 
suffered  the  loss  of  him.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
completed  group  makes  any  co-operative  exertion 
of  our  imaginative  powers  superfluous. 

The  corpse  lies  there  visible ;  it  distracts  our 
attention  from  the  old  woman  ;  we  feel  less  keenly 
her  emotion  ;  the  incident  no  longer  occurs  in  the 
Holy  of  Holies  of  our  soul,  but  in  a  forecourt,  in 
a  place  of  inspection.  We  could,  in  imagination, 
endow  the  corpse  with  the  features  of  a  dear  relative, 
and  feel  sorrow  for  the  dead  man :  inspection  teaches 

36 


Socialistic  Art— Constantin  Meunier 

us  that  the  corpse  is  a  stranger  to  us,  and  we  have 
no  grounds  for  shedding  tears  over  it.  The  two 
works,  placed  in  juxta  -  position,  fully  bear  out 
the  old  dictum,  that  a  work  of  art  is  more  power- 
fully effective  in  proportion  as  it  more  strongly 
excites  our  imaginative  faculties  to  creative  co- 
operation. 

A  series  of  works  brings  before  us  the  life  of  the 
coal-miners.  Some  of  them  come  to  daylight  after 
their  shift  is  ended.  They  are  tired,  but  cheerful. 
About  their  wearied  countenances  there  seems  to 
quiver  a  reflection  of  the  hearth-fire  which  awaits 
them  familiarly  in  their  poor  homes.  Here  is  a  miner 
at  his  work.  In  a  painful,  half-recumbent  position 
he  handles  the  mattock  in  the  narrow  gallery  under 
the  seam  from  which  he  is  dislodging  the  coal. 
Here  another  is  sitting  inactive,  with  his  spade 
and  lamp,  with  only  a  pair  of  trousers  on,  the  upper 
part  of  his  body  naked,  without  a  particle  of  fat 
on  his  muscles  steeled  by  toil.  Here  a  worker  at 
a  smelting  furnace,  likewise  sitting — a  reminiscence 
of  the  famous  "  Les  Foins "  of  Bastien  Lepage, 
which  is  at  present  in  the  Luxembourg.  Like  this 
peasant  lass,  Meunier's  labourer  is  completely 
bestialised ;  he  stares  vacantly  before  him,  with 
a  jaw  open  like  that  of  an  animal ;  his  hand, 
unused  to  inactivity,  hangs  down  heavily.  It  is 
a  shocking  picture  of  the  degradation  of  man 
through  a  one  -  sided  exertion  of  the  muscles ;  a 


On  Art  and  Artists 

forcible  harangue  in  favour  of  the  eight  hours'  day, 
which  would  leave  more  time  for  the  human  working 
machine,  not  only,  as  his  opponents  assert,  to  visit 
the  public-house,  but  also  for  spiritual  life. 

Meunier  rises  to  the  height  of  the  Vedic  hymns 
when  he  turns  towards  the  countryman  and  his 
heroic  deeds  in  nourishing  mankind.  In  the  relief, 
"  The  Harvest,"  a  band  of  reapers — four  men  and 
two  women — are  grappling  with  the  ripe  corn.  One 
seizes  violently  the  stalks,  the  second,  bending 
forward,  makes  a  wide  stroke  with  his  sickle,  a 
woman  binds  into  sheaves  the  ears  that  have  been 
mown.  In  the  background,  one  longing  for  rest 
looks  at  the  position  of  the  sun,  and  another, 
rapido  fessus  aestu  (fatigued  by  the  scorching 
summer  heat),  to  use  Vergil's  words,  wipes  the 
sweat  from  his  brow.  There  is  the  note  of  the 
Eclogues  about  this  work.  Over  it  floats  the  con- 
secration of  the  lofty  act  with  which  the  rooted 
son  of  the  soil,  the  ploughman — the  creator  and 
bearer  of  all  civilisation — gains  the  bread  of  mankind 
out  of  the  earth.  A  single  figure,  "June,"  is  also 
created  from  this  emotion.  It  is  the  realisation  in 
free  sculpture  of  a  motif  from  the  relief.  A  reaper, 
stripped  to  the  waist,  emaciated  by  the  heavy  toil  of 
harvesting,  exhausted  by  his  day's  work,  leans  upon 
his  scythe  and  glances,  shading  his  eyes  with  his 
hand,  at  the  sun — "  I  would  it  were  bedtime  and  all 
was  over."  One  would  like  to  press  the  hand  of 

38 


Socialistic  Art — Constantin  Meunier 

this  brave,  good  fellow,  or  at  any  rate  that  of  the 
artist  who  has  represented  him  to  us  so  faithfully 
and  straightforwardly. 

All  Meunier's  works  have  not  this  delicacy  ;  many 
are  weak,  some  absolute  failures.  As  an  instance 
of  such  I  point  to  "The  Puddlers,"  though  it  has 
been  particularly  admired  by  some  critics.  Three 
iron-founders  stand  at  the  open  stoke-hole  of  the 
puddle  -  furnace,  and  feed  it  with  mighty  pieces 
for  melting.  From  the  opening  issue  steam  and 
smoke,  which  curl  round  the  three  men  wielding 
rakes  and  tongs,  and  eddy  upwards.  Meunier 
has  tried  to  represent  this  steam  in  sculpture. 
He  has  given  it  a  concrete  form,  necessarily 
the  same  corporeality  as  the  bodies,  tools,  blocks 
of  metal,  the  flaming  furnace ;  for  sculpture  pos- 
sesses no  means  of  differentiating  the  thickness 
of  matter,  when  it  abandons  the  mere  engraved 
line  or  the  make-shift  of  various  perforations.  The 
result  is,  that  instead  of  smoke  there  is  an 
amazing  image  which  partly  reminds  us  of  an  un- 
trimmed  dab  of  plaster,  partly  of  a  weather-beaten 
stalactite.  Meunier  was  originally  a  painter,  and 
took  to  sculpture  only  late  in  life.  His  "  Puddlers  " 
are  formed  with  the  technique  of  a  painter,  from 
which  the  artist  did  not  immediately  emancipate 
himself.  Another  relief,  "  The  Bricklayers,"  is 
absolutely  a  mistake.  Two  men  are  standing 
in  the  loam-pit  and  handing  up  the  bricks  to  their 

39 


On  Art  and  Artists 

mates  above.  They  do  this  with  theatrical  gestures, 
as  if  a  conquered  king  were  handing  over  his  crown 
to  his  conqueror.  The  contrast  between  the  bom- 
bastic movement  and  its  vulgar  purpose  is  so 
grotesque  that  the  picture  has  an  irresistibly  comic 
effect.  Here  Meunier  is,  for  the  only  occasion  in 
all  the  works  of  his  with  which  I  am  acquainted, 
insincere  and  affected.  I  have  looked  for  a  long 
time  at  this  deplorable  work,  and  it  made  me 
thoughtful.  How  heavy  is  the  responsibility  of 
the  critic !  Supposing  I  knew  nothing  of  Meunier 
and  only  saw  this  work,  I  should  find  it  hard 
to  resist  the  impulse  to  abuse  him  in  the  sharpest 
terms,  for  it  unites  the  two  worst  faults  that  can 
be  found  in  a  work  of  art :  it  is  at  the  same 
time  inanely  futile  and  obtrusively  pretentious. 
So  far  I  should  be  acting  within  the  scope  of 
my  perfect  rights.  But  am  I  certain  that  I  was 
not  allowing  myself  to  be  carried  away  by 
my  own  natural  propensity  to  generalise,  and  to 
condemn  not  only  the  work,  but  also  its  author,  to 
call  him  a  bungler  and  a  botcher?  Such  a  verdict 
would,  apparently,  be  well-grounded  and,  in  fact, 
revoltingly  false.  Works  such  as  "  The  Bricklayers  " 
are  a  warning  to  the  critic ;  they  admonish  him 
to  be  conscientious.  Their  teaching  is  that  every 
comprehensive  verdict  on  an  artist  must  presuppose 
a  knowledge  of  his  whole  life's  work,  and  that  no 
single  work  can  offer  sufficient  basis  for  the 

40 


Socialistic  Art — Constantin  Meunier 

general    appreciation    of    its    author,    especially    of 
his  depreciation. 

In  his  figures  of  the  miners  and  iron-founders, 
Meunier  showed  sympathy  with  the  lot  of  the 
proletariate  ;  in  his  portrayals  of  the  countryman's 
life,  reverence  for  the  civilising  work  of  the  man  who 
ploughs  the  soil.  But  he  reveals  in  certain  other 
works  of  similar  subjects  beauty  which  prevents  us 
from  wishing  for  one  moment  for  those  Invalides 
of  Olympus,  the  unchangeable  troop  of  academic 
sculpture.  The  "  Blacksmith  "  wielding  his  hammer, 
the  "  Harbour  -  Workers,"  the  more  than  life-sized 
"  Smith,"  are  discoveries  which  are  tantamount  to 
revelations.  Especially  this  smith  in  his  working 
garb,  with  his  stiff  leather  apron,  leggings,  and  the 
foot  coverings  that  are  intended  to  protect  him 
from  the  sparks.  Leaning  on  the  tongs  that  are 
almost  the  height  of  a  man,  he  rests  his  hand  on 
his  hips  and  waits  until  it  is  his  turn  to  attack  the 
work.  There  is  a  proud  tranquillity,  and  a  reserve 
of  ready  strength  in  him  that  carry  us  away.  This 
artisan  is  every  whit  as  handsome  in  his  way  as  an 
antique  statue  in  a  toga  of  ample  fold,  or  a  noble 
nudity,  or  a  knight  in  romantic  armour.  His  body 
possesses  the  elegance  which  perfect  fitness  confers, 
his  movement  the  energetic  restraint  that  the  work- 
man, thrifty  in  exerting  himself,  acquires  through 
being  in  the  habit  of  avoiding  every  prodigal 
expenditure  of  his  strength.  Meunier  trains  our 

41 


On  Art  and  Artists 

eyes  to  appreciate  the  aesthetic  charm  of  this 
phenomenon  of  our  own  days,  which  great  art  has 
hitherto  stupidly  passed  by. 

Of  what  expressive  poetry  Meunier  is  capable  we 
recognise  with  admiration  in  a  statue  of  an  animal, 
the  mine  -  horse  —  one  of  those  unfortunate  nags 
which  are  brought  to  the  mine  as  foals,  in  order  to 
draw  the  coal  waggons  to  the  galleries,  and  who  are 
condemned  to  spend  the  whole  of  their  lives  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth,  far  from  the  sun.  The  animal's 
head  droops,  its  lips  are  flabby,  eyes  half-closed, 
ears  sunken,  flanks  fallen  in  ;  the  whole  wretched- 
ness of  an  innocent  creature  condemned  to  night 
and  woe  is  embodied  in  this  shivering  beast.  The 
mine-nag  has  certainly  no  sense  of  its  disconsolate 
fate;  it  does  not  miss  the  sun,  or  long  for  green 
pastures.  It  does  not  envy  its  luckier  brothers 
who  can  skip  in  the  fresh  grass  beneath  the  blue 
sky.  Meunier  has  all  these  feelings  for  it ;  he 
infuses  them  into  the  animal's  stupid  soul ;  but 
doubly  amazing  is  the  power  with  which  he  him- 
self can  express  through  a  coarse  animal  body 
humanly  lofty  tragedy. 

What  had  already  become  clear  to  me  when  I 
saw  Meunier's  works  separately  in  the  salon  at  the 
Champs  de  Mars,  deepened  itself  within  me,  at 
the  sight  of  the  whole  collection  of  them,  into 
a  certain  conviction  that  Meunier  is,  perhaps  un- 
consciously, a  pupil  of  Millet's.  He  learnt  from 

42 


Socialistic  Art— Constantin  Meunier 

him  to  look  with  reverence  on  the  homely  men  who 
with  holy  zeal,  without  gazing  to  the  left  or  right, 
with  body  and  soul  in  their  work,  wrest  the  works  of 
civilisation  from  the  forces  of  nature.  He  improves 
Millet's  peasants  and  artisans  into  the  plastic  and 
monumental.  It  is  the  same  simplicity,  almost  crude- 
ness  ;  the  same  contempt  of  pose,  the  same  extreme 
energy  of  activity,  and  the  same  deep,  inward  life 
as  in  the  master  who  painted  the  "  Angelus."  And 
what  makes  the  most  vivid  impression  on  us  in 
Meunier,  as  in  Millet,  is  the  ardent  piety  with 
which  the  sight  of  true  and  earnestly  working 
people  fills  him  —  people  who  rise  high  in  their 
apparently  humble,  yet  fruitful  and,  through  its 
connection  with  the  corporate  life  of  mankind, 
especially  significant  labour.  An  artist,  however, 
who  discloses  to  us  such  outlooks  on  the  path  of 
civilisation,  and  such  insight  into  the  human  soul, 
has  some  claim  to  a  place  near  the  acknowledged 
masters. 


43 


Ill 
THE  QUESTION  OF  STYLE 

A  HISTORY  of  style — I  mean  of  style  in  general,  not 
of  one  particular  style — has,  so  far  as  I  am  aware, 
never  been  written.  That  I  can  understand.  It 
would  be  a  gigantic  task,  even  exceeding  the  power 
of  an  encyclopaedist.  It  would  have  to  show  from 
what  spiritual  peculiarities  of  the  artist ;  from  what 
necessities  and  intuitions  of  the  time ;  from  what 
requirements  of  the  material,  and  from  what  com- 
pulsion on  the  part  of  the  technique,  the  style 
develops,  and  it  would  have  to  measure  the  whole 
range  of  individual  and  national  psychology,  of 
customs,  of  material  and  of  technology.  The 
individual,  however,  whose  powers  do  not  suffice 
for  an  exhaustive  and  systematic  exposition  of  the 
genesis  and  mutation  of  styles,  can  constantly  register 
partial  observations,  and  throw  light  on  sections  of 
this  wide  province. 

Every  human  activity  is  excited  by  a  need. 
We  fabricate  weapons,  implements,  shelter,  and 
clothing,  because  we  need  them.  In  the  earliest 

44 


The  Question  of  Style 

stages  of  human  artistic  skill,  purpose  and  material 
alone  control  the  productions  of  the  human  hand  ; 
style,  so  far  as  we  can  speak  of  such  a  thing,  is 
purely  constructive.  It  makes  us  recognise  the 
influence  of  a  small  number  of  bio-mechanical  and 
psychological  laws  —  laws  that  have  hardly  varied 
during  all  the  thousands  of  years  in  the  history 
of  human  morals.  These  laws  are  those  of  the 
least  effort  and  of  selfishness.  By  virtue  of  the 
law  of  least  effort  we  choose  the  most  promising 
material,  i.e.,  at  which  we  have  most  conveniently 
to  hand,  which  can  be  worked  in  the  easiest  way, 
or  is  most  durable,  and  for  that  reason,  more 
especially  saves  us  the  too  frequent  repetition 
of  the  effort.  We  choose  the  form  to  which 
the  material  employed  adapts  itself  most  readily. 
The  problem  which  the  constructive  element  in 
style  has  to  solve  is  this :  given  a  determined 
task  which  should  be  performed  by  an  artistic 
expedient,  how  will  this  object  be  most  readily, 
and  yet  most  perfectly,  attained  with  the  material 
available  ? 

The  law  of  selfishness  alters  the  natural  course  of 
the  law  of  least  effort,  and  often  operates  quite  in 
opposition  to  it.  The  possessor  of  an  object  wishes 
to  be  remarked ;  he  will  distinguish  himself  from 
others,  be  admired  and  envied  by  them,  whereby  he 
will  gain  influence  over  their  minds.  He  will  there- 
fore demand  that  for  the  object  not  the  most  easily 

45 


On  Art  and  Artists 

procured  material,  but  the  rarest,  and  that  which 
can  be  furnished  only  with  the  utmost  difficulty,  be 
employed,  that  the  form  require  not  the  least,  but 
greatest  possible  amount  of  labour.  He  will  likewise 
wish  the  workmen  to  sacrifice  the  elegance  of  economy, 
not  to  represent  what  is  alone  real  and  necessary 
with  the  smallest  expenditure  of  material,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  to  lavish  material,  and  make  it  quite 
visible  and  quite  striking ;  to  add  to  the  Useful  and 
Essential,  also  the  Superfluous,  so  as  to  suggest  the 
notion  of  wealth.  The  idea  of  elegance  will  alter 
its  meaning.  It  will  no  longer  signify  the  greatest 
suitability  and  perfect  appropriateness,  but,  in  the 
first  place,  costliness  of  material,  difficulty  of  work, 
wastefulness — in  a  word,  luxury. 

The  law  of  selfishness  bursts  the  narrow  frame  of 
construction,  and  adds  to  style  its  second  element, 
decoration.  This,  too,  is  still  under  the  law  of  least 
expenditure  of  force ;  this,  too,  is  still  primarily 
subordinate  to  construction,  i.e.,  utility,  but  it  strives 
to  render  itself  independent  of  the  constructive 
element,  and  to  become  its  own  object.  The  history 
of  each  particular  style  shows  this  conflict  between 
the  constructive  and  decorative  elements.  At  first 
construction  rules  alone ;  next,  decoration,  called 
forth  by  the  amour  propre  of  the  fabricator  or 
possessor,  joins  it,  but  very  timidly  and  very 
modestly.  It  obsequiously  gets  out  of  the  way  of 
construction,  and  contents  itself  with  corners  where 

46 


The  Question  of  Style 

the  constructive  element  has  nothing  to  do.  But 
gradually  it  gets  bolder,  steps  from  its  holes  and 
corners,  confronts  construction,  compels  it  to  give 
way  and  take  less  comfortable  by-paths,  and  finally 
subjects  the  constructive  element  entirely  to  its  will 
and  caprice,  so  that,  in  the  decadent  period  of  a 
style,  a  useful  object  becomes  wholly  unserviceable 
for  its  original  purpose,  and  is  only  an  excuse  for 
decoration,  which  self-gloriously  gives  itself  airs. 

There  is  another  contrast  between  construction  and 
decoration.  The  constructive  is  the  social  element 
in  the  product  of  human  labour ;  the  decorative  the 
individual  one.  I  do  not  think  that  this  dictum 
needs  an  elaborate  explanation ;  it  seems  clear 
enough  to  me.  In  construction  expression  is  given 
to  a  need  which  is,  at  a  given  time  and  in  a 
given  place,  shared  by  many  or  all ;  it  answers 
not  only  a  condition,  but  a  demand  of  the  com- 
munity. Decoration  is — at  any  rate  originally — the 
outcome  of  individual  taste  and  individual  imagina- 
tive power.  Construction  is  a  thing  necessitated, 
and  therefore  banal  \  decoration  is  superfluous,  and 
therefore  charming.  The  former  appeals  to  the 
understanding ;  the  latter  is  fantastic  and  senti- 
mental. The  human  consciousness  is,  however,  so 
arranged  that — for  its  gain?  for  its  loss?  (I  have 
treated  this  question  so  often  and  so  thoroughly  in 
other  places  that  I  may  here  leave  it  undiscussed) 
— it  derives  its  feelings  of  pleasure  and  aversion 

47 


On  Art  and  Artists 

incomparably  more  from  its  sensuous  than  from 
its  intellectual  life.  Wherefore,  for  practical  purpose 
in  style,  only  those  who  are  most  highly  developed 
intellectually  have  appreciation ;  on  the  other  hand, 
for  what  is  pleasing,  all  whose  nervous  system  is 
susceptible  to  pleasurable  feelings. 

An  individual  decorative  invention  becomes  style 
by  the  imitation  of  others,  which  can  be  slavish  or 
free.  A  single  work,"" a  single  artist,  will  never  be 
felt  as  a  phenomenon  of  style.  There  is  the  same 
difference  between  originality  and  style  as  between 
the  picture  of  a  certain  person  and  the  composite 
or  average  photograph  of  Galton.  The  feature  of 
family  likeness  that  runs  through  the  works  of  one 
period  and  one  place,  however,  like  that  which  all 
members  of  a  blood-relationship  exhibit,  is  explained 
most  simply  through  descent  from  a  common  ancestor. 

Decoration  is  either  organic  or  transferred.  The 
former  is  the  outgrowth  of  construction,  and  gives 
it  a  new  meaning,  unites  to  the  idea  of  its  purpose 
a  simile  that  can  be  correct  or  false,  pleasant  or 
silly ;  the  latter  is  added  externally,  and  only  aims 
at  the  beautification  of  the  surface,  without  adopt- 
ing living  and  necessary  relations  to  the  structure 
and  destination  of  the  object.  Surface  decoration 
may  be  pretty  and  rich,  but  it  is  always  something 
subordinate,  and  always  speaks  of  poor  imagination 
and  slight  inventive  power.  Organic  decoration  is 
alone  the  outcome  of  a  creative  gift  for  art. 

48 


The  Question  of  Style 

The  psychical  mechanism,  which  produces  organic 
decoration,  is  always  the  same ;  it  is  the  co-operation 
of  association  of  ideas  and  anthropomorphism.  I 
know  very  well  that  this  latter  is  only  a  particular 
instance  of  the  former  ;  but  I  cite  the  really  identical, 
nevertheless,  as  two  apparently  different  ideas,  so  as 
not  to  become  vague  through  too  wide  generalisation. 

For  the  sake  of  clearness  I  will  quote  a  concrete 
example.  In  collections,  one  not  infrequently  meets 
with  a  mediaeval  plane  having  the  figure  of  a 
crouching  lion  with  jaws  open  and  a  wild  expression. 
It  is  easy  to  reproduce  the  psychic  process  through 
which  this  form  arose.  The  joiner  who  uses  the 
plane,  and  follows  his  own  work  reflectively,  sees 
how  the  mouth  of  the  plane,  when  applied,  strikes 
the  iron  into  the  surface  of  the  wood,  and  tears 
the  splinters  from  it.  What  is  more  obvious  than 
to  think  at  the  same  time  of  jaws  pouncing  on  the 
wood  to  flay  and  mangle  it  ?  The  technical  German 
expressions,  Hobelmaul  and  Hobelwangen  (plane  - 
mouth  and  plane-cheeks)  for  the  aperture  in  which 
the  Hobeleisen  (plane-iron)  is  fixed,  show  that  the 
association  of  ideas  at  once  presented  itself  when 
the  tool  assumed  the  form  familiar  to  us.  The 
mediaeval  artist  went  further ;  he  has  logically 
developed  the  image  of  a  rending  and  devouring 
mouth  suggested  by  association  of  ideas.  He  has 
given  it  form  ;  he  has  examined  it  with  sufficient 
artistic  intensity  to  embody  materially  the  picture 

49  D 


On  Art  and  Artists 

presented  by  the  word,  to  raise  it  from  the  rhetorical 
to  the  plastic.  But  whilst  the  artist  advanced  from 
the  mouth  of  the  plane  to  a  lion's  jaws,  and  from 
the  latter  to  an  entire  lion  crouching  over  the  board 
as  over  a  victim  that  he  has  attacked  and  torn  down, 
and  mangling  it  with  raging  delight,  he  has  at  the 
same  time  made  use  of  anthropomorphism,  has 
imputed  to  the  plane  will,  passion,  gruesome  enjoy- 
ment, and  turned  the  planing  into  the  tool's  riotous 
satisfaction  of  bloodthirsty  wild-beast  instincts. 

This  plane  in  the  shape  of  a  crouching  lion  is 
the  model  of  a  good  organic  decoration.  The  con- 
struction is  not  injured  ;  it  does  no  damage  to  the 
under-surface  of  the  plane,  that  it  is  the  smooth-lying 
belly  of  the  lion  with  drawn  claws ;  it  does  not 
prejudice  the  working  capacity  of  the  iron,  that  it 
is  let  into  a  mouth  of  a  slightly  waving  lip  shape ;  it 
does  not  make  it  difficult  to  work,  that  the  handle 
is  shaped  like  a  round  lion's  head.  A  sense  is 
communicated  to  the  tool  which  it  did  not  originally 
possess ;  it  does  not  shave  and  smoothe,  but  lives, 
tears,  devours,  and  finds  its  joy  therein.  Organic 
decoration  is  thus  an  infusing  of  soul  into  that 
which  possessed  no  soul ;  and  not  only  this,  but 
also  in  a  higher  and  nobler  way,  a  submerging  of 
oneself  in  the  soul  that  the  artist  has  inspired  into 
that  which  was  soulless.  He  must  live  in  the 
being  which  his  anthropomorphising  association  of 
ideas  has  excogitated.  "What  should  I  feel,  how 

50 


The  Question  of  Style 

should  I  act,  what  movements  should  I  make,  what 
expression  should  I  have,  if  I  were  this  object, 
but  thinking,  willing,  feeling — in  short,  living  and 
conscious  ?  How  should  I,  for  instance,  as  a 
plane  which  was  really  a  beast  of  prey,  dispose 
myself,  if  I  had  the  board  —  my  victim  —  under 
me,  and  began  devouring  it  ? "  The  organically 
decorative  artist  is,  therefore,  really  the  dramatiser 
of  the  inanimate,  for  he  creates  beings,  bestows  on 
them  character,  and  makes  them  act  according  to 
the  latter  and  the  situation,  and,  if  not  speak, 
nevertheless  imitate. 

If  an  artist  has,  from  some  especially  vivid  intuition 
and  active  association  of  ideas,  found  and  embodied 
an  anthropomorphic  likeness  which  is  very  strikingly 
clear,  imitation  seizes  it  and  repeats  it  with  slight 
individual  changes,  which  are,  now  and  then,  spirited 
and  happy,  but,  for  the  most  part,  make  the  original 
picture  dull,  nay,  through  stupidity  or  misunderstand- 
ing may  degrade  it  to  nonsense.  Such  is  exactly 
the  case  with  the  material  picture  as  with  the 
word-picture.  At  first  it  is  the  new  and  peculiar 
discovery  of  a  poetic  mind,  then  it  is  repeated  well 
or  ill  so  often  that  it  ends  with  being  a  characterless 
commonplace.  Every  cultivated  language  is  made 
up  of  such  commonplaces,  and,  in  like  manner, 
style  is  made  up  of  repetitions  and  tones,  which 
are  the  plastic  equivalent  of  rhetorical  phrases. 

The  psychic  sources  of  style — in  contradistinction 


On  Art  and  Artists 

to  those  of  freely  devised  organic  decoration,  which 
style  only  repeats  and  vulgarises — originate  in  very 
mean  domains  of  mind.  They  are  thoughtlessness, 
or,  to  put  it  more  clearly  and  briefly,  stupidity  and 
mental  inertia  in  their  special  forms  as  imitativeness 
and  detestation  of  novelty. 

It  is  thoughtlessness  when  we  imitate  forms  that  are 
suited  to  a  particular  material  in  a  quite  different 
material,  simply  because  we  are  used  to  the  sight 
of  them.  The  far-famed  Greek  temple  architecture 
is  largely  a  result  of  this  thoughtlessness  :  it  slavishly 
imitates  in  stone  the  wooden  architecture,  the  place 
of  which  it  has  taken ;  it  retains  the  beams  with 
projecting  beam-heads  and  cross-braces  that  have 
neither  object  nor  meaning  in  stone.  To  the  same 
category  belong  the  tablets,  with  manifold  curled 
up  and  twisted  edges,  which  the  Renaissance  and 
the  Rococo  executed  in  stone  and  wood,  although 
they  have  no  sense  or  justification  except  in  sheet 
metal :  the  contemporary  Moscow  silver-work,  which 
imitate  painfully  enough  damask  linen  with  Russo- 
Byzantine  coloured  embroidery,  or  cakes  and  black- 
bread  in  precious  metals  or  enamel :  the  marble  veils, 
lace  garments,  and  knitted  stockings  of  the  North- 
Italian  sculptors  of  the  decadence,  etc. 

It  is  mental  inertia  when  we  mechanically  persist 
in  repeating  forms  which  either  are  unfitted  for 
a  given  object,  or  have  lost  all  meaning.  For 
two  thousand  years  artists  of  all  sorts  have  made 

52 


The  Question  of  Style 

a   decorative    use   of   acanthus    leaves    in    countries 
where  no  human  eye  has  ever  had  an  acanthus  leaf 
before    it.      The    Middle    Ages    decorated    with    a 
whole  menagerie   of  beasts   from    Asia   and   Africa, 
which  they  knew  only  from  fables,  foreign  textures, 
and  pictures.     From  imitation  to  imitation  the  out- 
lines, which  no  comparison  with  the   actual   model 
corrected   and    restored    to   accuracy,   became   more 
inexact  and  grotesque.     Thus  arose  acanthus  capitals 
which  are  more  like  rough  logs  than  the  elegantly 
curled    plant,   and    heraldic    lions    and   leopards,   in 
which    no    feature    any   longer    reminds    us    of   the 
great  cats.     This  is  then  called  improving  upon  the 
natural  form,  and  people  even  discover  a  particular 
beauty   in    it :    a   striking    proof  of  the    ability   of 
mankind    to   make   a  virtue   out  of  necessity.     For 
the   so  -  called   stylisation    is    conscious    and    inten- 
tional only  in  late  conservative  imitation.     It  arises, 
however,    quite    involuntarily    through    unintelligent 
imitation  of  a   pattern   that   is   incorrectly  felt  and 
grasped,   because   one   has   never   known    its    living 
model.     So,  too,  the  whole  mythology  of  the  Greeks 
still    haunts    our    present  -  day    decoration,    which 
mythology  was  to  the  Greek  artists  a  part  of  their 
living  feeling  and  religious  conviction,  whilst  to-day 
it    has    lost    all    thought    and    feeling.      What    can 
Neptune's  trident,  Orpheus'  lyre,  the  Sirens  and  the 
Centaur,  the  Sphynx  and  the  Gorgon,  signify  to  a  son 
of  this  century?     But  whilst  these  bits  of  inherited 

53 


On  Art  and  Artists 

form  wander  from  one  imitator  to  another,  until 
they  become  hopelessly  unrecognisable,  they  gain  a 
beauty  of  another  sort  which  they  did  not  originally 
possess :  the  venerable  spell  of  antiquity  surrounds 
them,  and  this  charm,  in  its  turn,  touches  certain 
susceptibilities  of  the  soul,  the  inclination  to  mystic, 
twilight  conceptions  of  what  is  remote  in  time  and 
place,  the  pleasurable  feeling  of  comfortable  persist- 
ance  in  that  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  the  con- 
nection of  the  familiar  and  always  known  with  the 
remembrance  of  all  strong  impressions,  both  happy 
and  unhappy,  of  childhood  and  youth.  This  mystico- 
archaic  and  subjectively  sentimental  element,  which 
occurs  in  every  style  handed  down  traditionally, 
furnishes  it  with  fanatical  devotees  whom  its  original 
decorative  value  could  never  win.  That  is,  if  I 
may  say  so,  the  religious  side  of  the  feeling  for, 
and  appreciation  of,  style. 

From  the  oppressive  mass  of  material,  which  I 
must,  for  the  most  part,  leave  untouched,  I  am  afraid 
I  must  deal  with  only  one  more  question :  —  Is 
there  a  new  style  ?  Is  the  so-called  "  Secessionism  " 
a  style  which  characterises  our  time,  or,  perhaps, 
a  fugitive  moment  of  our  time  ?  He  who  has 
attentively  observed  the  later  exhibitions  on  this 
point  will  be  bound  to  say  "  No "  decisively. 
Household  furniture  and  room  decoration  of  the 
"secessionist"  order  are  tortured  into  appearing  new 
and  original ;  but  they  are  neither  the  one  nor  the 

54 


The  Question  of  Style 

other,  but  a  patient,  methodical  eclecticism  which 
aims  at  the  influence  of  what  is  foreign  and 
peculiar.  We  distinguish  accurately  that  rooms 
built  and  painted  in  the  secession  style  are  patched 
together  of  Chinese  motives,  with  an  addition  of 
Loie  Fuller's  serpentine  twistings,  and  that  seces- 
sionist furniture  imitates,  in  good  wood  and  metal, 
the  slenderness,  knottiness,  and  pliancy  of  bamboos. 
The  secession  contains  a  very  minute  percentage 
of  independent  invention  and  a  great  many  remini- 
scences of  Eastern  Asia.  The  West  European  style, 
which  should  ostensibly  be  the  expression  of  the 
latest  high  European  tendencies,  is,  in  reality, 
Chinese  and  Japanese  style,  exaggerated  by  absurdity 
of  form  and  assumed  or  real  delirium. 


55 


IV 
THE    OLD    FRENCH    MASTERS 

WE  must  once  more  change  our  method  of  study. 
That  is  the  immediate  result  of  the  Exhibition  of  Old 
French  artists  —  painters,  draughtsmen,  enamellers, 
sculptors — which,  in  1904,  in  the  Pavilion  de  Marsan 
at  the  Louvre,  brought  together  several  hundred 
fascinating,  and  perhaps  half  a  dozen  overpowering 
works.  With  the  proofs  furnished  by  these  master- 
pieces full  of  earnestness  and  beauty,  a  chapter  in  the 
history  of  French  and  European  art  will  have  to  be 
rewritten — not,  to  be  sure,  altogether  in  the  sense 
intended  and  proclaimed  by  those  who  prepared  this 
exceedingly  important  arrangement. 

Comparatively  few  mediaeval  French  works  of  art 
have  been  preserved  to  us.  The  Hundred  Years' 
War,  the  devastations  of  the  League,  and  the  Great 
Revolution  made  a  clean  sweep  of  them  with 
fiendish  thoroughness.  With  the  chateaux,  abbeys, 
and  monasteries,  their  contents  so  far  as  works  of 
art  were  concerned  also  perished.  What  survived 

56 


The  Old   French  Masters 

has  up  to  now  appeared  to  a  pre-conceived  idea 
scarcely  native.  One  historian  of  art  wrote  after 
another,  that,  up  to  the  period  of  the  Renaissance, 
the  plastic  artists  who  worked  in  France  came 
partly  from  the  Low  Countries,  partly  from  Italy, 
but  were  only  quite  exceptionally,  if  at  all,  French- 
men. From  a  geographical  standpoint,  we  might 
speak  of  a  French  mediaeval  art ;  but  from  the  nature 
and  form  of  the  work,  on  the  other  hand,  we  should 
admit  only  a  Flemish  or  Italian,  but  no  French  art. 

This  view  is  no  longer  defensible.  France,  too, 
had,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  her  own  artists  and 
schools  of  art,  and  if  she  also  offered  hospitality  to 
foreign  talent,  she  was  not  dependent  on  it.  The 
strong,  creative  genius  that  developed  in  Northern 
France  from  the  prosaic  semi  -  circular  "arch  of 
the  Byzantine  style  the  pointed-arch  poetry  of  the 
Gothic,  knew  also  how  to  make  use  of  the  chisel  and 
paint-brush  as  means  of  expression,  and  to  satisfy 
by  painting  and  carving  its  impulse  for  depicting 
form.  The  mediaeval  art  of  France  is  not  inferior 
to  any  other.  It  must  no  longer  be  treated  as  a 
mere  appendage  of  art  development  in  the  Low 
Countries  and  Lombardy. 

To  be  sure,  if  the  learned  compilers  of  the  Exhibi- 
tion Catalogue — George  Lafenestre,  Henri  Bouchot, 
Leopold  Delisle  and  other  academicians  or  directors 
of  museums  and  libraries — claim  to  have  discovered, 
in  the  pictures  and  statues,  a  particular  French 

57 


On  Art  and  Artists 

national  feature  which  distinguishes  them  clearly  from 
other  contemporary  works,  they  are  led  astray  by 
patriotic  prejudice.  The  works  bear  the  stamp  of 
a  period,  not  of  a  people.  Nothing  is  more  like  a 
fourteenth-  or  fifteenth-century  French  work  of  art 
than  a  Flemish  or  Italian,  and  vice  versa.  It  is 
noticeable  that  people  have  taken  Bourdichon's 
masterpiece,  one  of  the  gems  of  the  collection — the 
portrait  of  the  little  Dauphin  Charles  Roland,  to  be 
a  work  of  Memling  ;  and  of  the  most  beautiful  paint- 
ings of  one  and  the  same  painter — des  Moulins — 
have  long  ascribed  one  to  Van  der  Goes,  the  other 
to  Ghirlandajo. 

No ;  the  temperaments  of  the  artists  at  this  period 
were  not  differentiated  nationally.  They  are,  more- 
over, not  so  at  the  present  day  either,  and  if  analogies 
are  established  between  artists  of  the  same  origin,  they 
may,  in  all  cases,  be  naturally  explained  otherwise 
than  by  a  common  descent.  The  influence  of  strong 
personalities,  who  influence  as  prototypes,  external 
successes,  which  form  a  current  of  fashion  and  incite 
to  imitation,  or  simply  a  tenaciously  held  tradition  of 
a  school,  in  which  in  a  long  series  of  artist  genera- 
tions has  grown  up,  suffice  to  impress  on  the  art  of 
a  country  through  extensive  epochs,  a  certain  family 
physiognomy,  which  only  a  mystically  inclined  mind 
will  be  tempted  to  refer  to  race  and  blood. 

Topographical  and  national  classifiations  have  in 
fact  no  inward  spiritual  justification  in  art,  but  at 

58 


The  Old  French  Masters 

most  a  value  of  convenience,  in  so  far  as  they  render 
possible  external  groupings,  which  facilitate  a  survey. 
The  whole  art  of  Europe  is  one.  It  has  developed 
from  the  Greek,  the  tradition  of  which  has  remained 
living  through  all  the  centuries,  and  has  crept,  from 
country  to  country,  connecting  inseparably  all  separate 
national  developments  with  their  common  origin. 
The  Greeks  were  the  teachers  of  the  Romans,  and 
their  inspirations  and  rules  were  carried  down  into  the 
Christian  catacombs,  and  from  them  blossomed  the 
art  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Byzantine  artists  from  the  Roman  empire  of  the 
East  itself  or  from  Italy,  initiated,  at  the  Court 
of  Charlemagne,  the  barbarians  of  the  Prankish 
kingdom  in  the  mysteries  of  their  craft,  and  carried 
the  Promethean  spark,  however  weakly  it  glimmered, 
from  Attica  to  the  banks  of  the  Seine  and  Scheldt, 
where  it  did  not  expire,  but,  later  on,  was  fanned 
again  to  bright  flame  by  the  fresh  breeze  of  the 
Renaissance.  The  Eastern  branch  of  Greek  art 
withered  into  actual  Byzantism,  whose  last  off-shoots 
are  the  Russian  icons  of  to-day.  The  Church  in  the 
East,  to  suit  the  fetish-loving  views  of  her  super- 
stitious semi-barbarians,  attributes  to  the  picture  the 
meaning  and  value  of  an  idol,  and  opposes  mistrust- 
fully every  deviation  from  the  canon  which,  accord- 
ing to  her  conception,  might  weaken  the  power  of 
the  idol.  In  the  West  less  credence  was  given  to 
the  picture's  magical  virtue,  its  form  obtained  no 

59 


On  Art  and  Artists 

dogmatic  consecration,  the  Church  allowed  the  artist 
freer  movement,  and  thus  development  was  possible, 
which  broke   through  the   stiff,  lifeless   rule   of  the 
school,  and  found  its  way  back  to  the  inexhaustible 
primitive  source  of  Greek  art  itself,  namely,  nature. 
The  emancipation  from  the  Byzantine  system  is 
not    the    work   of   Cimabue    and   Giotto,   or   of   an 
individual   at   all,   but   an   effort   of   almost   all   the 
artists    of    Western    Europe    at    the    close    of    the 
thirteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
The  portrait  of  John  II.  (1310-64)  in  the  Exhibition, 
which  was  painted  about  1359,  of  course  in  tempera 
on   a   gold   ground,  by   Girard   of  Orleans,  is  of  a 
marvellous    realism,    unchecked     by    the     slightest 
restraint  of  any  studied  rule.     The  head  in  profile, 
turned  towards  the  left,  of  the  melancholy-looking 
man  in  the  'fifties  with  the  long,  well-formed  nose, 
the  scanty  moustache  and  beard,  and  the  long  hair, 
gleams  with  warm   life.      Girard   copied   his   model 
modestly  and  truly,  without  troubling  himself  about 
a  golden   profit,  and    he    could    put   soul   into  the 
portrait   of   his   king  in   the   measure   in   which   he 
himself  felt  the  latter's  inward  life. 

The  awakening  of  a  feeling  for  nature  in  art  is 
generally  ascribed  to  the  Flemings,  particularly  to 
the  brothers  Van  Eyck.  That,  too,  is  arbitrary,  as 
a  glance  at  the  works  of  the  old  Frenchmen,  who 
flourished  contemporaneously  with  the  Van  Eycks, 
or  even  before  them,  teaches  us.  The  feeling  for 

60 


The  Old  French  Masters 

nature  was  always  active  in  the  few  with  bright  eyes 
and  joyous  consciousness  of  life,  who  dedicated 
themselves  to  art  from  inner  impulse.  The  themes 
to  which  the  plastic  arts  had  for  many  centuries  to 
restrict  themselves  were  certainly  as  unfavourable  as 
possible  to  a  healthy  naturalism.  The  only  subjects 
the  painter  dared  to  treat  were  illustrations  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament,  legends  of  the  saints,  and 
the  symbols  of  faith.  Scenes  of  heaven  and  hell, 
Biblical  miracles,  and  personification  of  the  dogmas 
of  the-  Church  could  assuredly  no  more  be  painted 
from  the  model  than  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  transub- 
stantiation.  And  yet  nature  herself  came  to  her 
rights  in  this  fundamental  representation  of  the  super- 
natural and  what  lay  outside  of  nature,  for  she  does 
not  allow  herself  now  to  be  driven  out,  even  by  the 
violent  methods  of  the  pitch-fork  spoken  of  by 
Horace  in  a  famous  verse.  Without  taking  particular 
thought  about  it,  or  with  a  cunning  conscious  of  its 
purpose,  the  artists  fashioned  their  works  most  foreign 
to  actual  life  out  of  elements  of  reality,  and  achieved 
them  by  nature,  truth,  and  life.  For  this  reason  even 
the  earliest  miniatures  of  the  manuscripts  become 
a  trustworthy  source  for  the  history  of  manners. 
Because  the  art-workers  of  limited  capacity,  who 
wrought  servilely  according  to  the  tradition  of  their 
gild,  reproduced  accurately  all  the  accessories — 
clothes,  weapons,  furniture,  buildings,  and  scenery — 
as  they  actually  saw  them. 

61 


On  Art  and  Artists 

The  little  picture,  "  The  Virgin  and  Child,"  which 
is  ascribed  to  Jean  Malouel,  and  was  painted  about 
1395,  and  can  therefore  have  owed  nothing  to  the 
Van  Eycks,  then  in  Dijon,  and  perhaps,  too,  else- 
where, certainly  still  quite  obscure  young  people, 
is  of  such  charming  realism  that  one  might  rather 
class  it  as  a  genre  picture  than  as  a  sacred  picture. 
The  Virgin  is  making  the  Child  a  frock,  and  is  just 
drawing  the  thread  tight,  with  the  needle  turned  in 
a  correct  horizontal  direction,  and  the  child  Jesus  is 
amusing  Himself  by  putting  His  rosy  little  foot  in 
His  Mother's  red  leather  slipper,  of  enormous  size  to 
Him,  which  she  has  taken  off  and  placed  before  her. 
There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  assume  that 
Malouel — if  it  was  he — gave  his  patron — perhaps  the 
Duke  of  Burgundy — his  (the  artist's)  own  dear  wife 
and  little  son  as  a  Holy  Family. 

In  "  The  Death  of  the  Virgin,"  of  the  same  school 
of  Burgundy,  but  about  a  century  later,  the  apostle, 
kneeling  at  the  foot  of  the  death-bed  and  reading 
his  prayer-book  devoutly,  with  a  big  pair  of  spectacles 
on  his  nose,  is,  in  spite  of  the  pathos  of  the  moment, 
so  natural  as  to  be  almost  comic.  "  The  Miracle  of 
the  Saint,"  with  his  head  in  his  hands,  who  is  walking 
barefoot,  by  a  pupil  of  Nicolas  Froment — perhaps  by 
the  master  himself — painted,  about  1480,  at  Aix  in 
Provence,  attests  the  painter's  most  naive  indifference 
to  probability.  In  the  middle  of  the  street  where  the 
decapitated  saint  is  walking,  and  the  executioner, 

62 


The  Old  French   Masters 

leaning  on  his  sword,  stands  dumbfounded,  kneel,  in 
measured  symmetry,  to  the  right  and  left  of  the 
saint,  the  founder  and  his  consort ;  he  with  four 
little  sons,  she  with  four  little  daughters  in  a  row, 
like  so  many  organ-pipes,  behind  them.  The  picture 
of  the  city  is,  however,  so  realistic  that  even  to-day 
an  old  corner  of  Aix  is  recognisable  in  it,  and  the 
gazers  running  up  or  standing  in  knots  and  laying 
their  heads  together,  or  hurrying  to  the  windows, 
are  of  everlasting  human  verity. 

Exactly  the  same  holds  good  of  the  altar  decora- 
tion, ascribed  to  John  of  Orleans  (circ.  1374),  a 
wonderful  sepia  painting  on  white  silk.  The  sections 
which  depict  the  Scourging  of  Christ  by  two  brutal 
fellows  with  hang-dog  faces,  the  Carrying  of  the 
Cross,  with  the  Mocking  of  Jesus  by  the  rabble  of 
Jerusalem,  and  the  Entombment,  with  the  Blessed 
Virgin  kissing  the  corpse,  show  that  striving  after 
truth,  which  has  hitherto  been  pronounced  to  be  a 
peculiarity  of  the  Dutch.  In  the  "  Martyrdom  of  a 
Holy  Bishop" — most  likely  by  Jean  Malouel  (circ. 
1400) — the  martyr,  in  mitre  and  pallium,  gazes  from 
a  strongly  barred  prison  window,  near  which  an 
angel  kneels,  and  through  the  bars  of  which  the 
Saviour  in  person  administers  to  him  the  viaticum. 
But  the  castle  in  the  Lombard  style — stone  rafters 
and  corbels  with  red  tiled  spaces — on  to  the  ground- 
floor  of  which  the  oval  window  opens,  may  be 
regarded  as  an  architectural  design. 

63 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Nicolas  Froment's  famous  "  Burning  Thornbush " 
from  Aix  Cathedral  (1475-6)  is  entirely  fabulous 
in  the  middle.  A  soft,  cloud  -  like,  lumpy  hill  of 
rock  supports  a  dense  group  of  thick-stemmed  trees, 
the  tops  of  which  unite  in  a  kind  of  gigantic  bird's 
nest,  wherein  the  Virgin  and  Child  sit  enthroned. 
But  this  miracle,  with  no  measure  of  reality  to 
gauge  it,  is  framed  in  a  deep  landscape  with  great 
distances ;  in  which  white  towns  lie  by  mirroring 
waters,  and  thickly-leaved  trees  rise  up  from  green 
hills  to  the  bright  sky,  and  in  the  foreground,  beside 
an  angel  of  Annunciation,  sits,  surrounded  by  his 
drove  of  wethers  and  his  quaintly  posed  dog,  the 
white-bearded  shepherd  with  his  legs  crossed  in  the 
most  natural  posture  you  could  conceive. 

In  the  case  of  almost  all  the  paintings  in  the 
Exhibition,  and  chiefly  of  the  best  of  them,  this 
proposition  can  be  repeated.  The  painter  loyally 
carries  out  the  subject  commissioned,  treating  it 
faithfully  according  to  the  traditional  formula ;  but 
what  is  not  covered  by  the  formula  he  shapes 
with  sovereign  freedom  and  an  honest  joyous 
realism  which  is  by  no  means  the  prerogative  of 
the  Dutch  and  Germans,  as  has  been  so  long 
believed,  but  is  to  be  met  with,  according  to  the 
evidenCS  of  this  Exhibition,  in  the  same  measure 
in  the  French. 

Sculptu/e  might  become  ^udc  in  the  earlier 
Middle  Ages,  but  it  did  not  cease  to  be  fostered. 

64 


The  Old  French  Masters 

Sculpture  in  stone  or  wood  was  the  complement  of 
building,    that    strongest    expression    of    mediaeval 
energy,    ivory  -  carving,    or    the    jewel    of    precious 
metal,   the    adornment   of   the    altar    or    the    state- 
rooms in  the  palace.     Painting,  on  the  other  hand, 
after  the   collapse  of  the   old   world,  went   back  to 
the   adornment   of  books,  and    from   this  the  great 
art  of  wall-  and  easel-painting  was  again  developed 
only  after  the  age  of  the  Crusades.     This,  in  many 
details,   betrays   its   origin   from    miniature.      For   a 
long  time  it  was  nothing  but  an  enlarged  miniature. 
The  works  in  the  Exhibition  show,  at  any  rate  up 
to  the   last   third   of  the   fifteenth   century,   all   the 
features  that  distinguish  the  pictorial  ornamentation 
of  the    manuscripts :    the    gold    ground,    the    neat, 
nay,  painful  perfection,  the  gay,  unqualified,  almost 
glaring,  colours,   the   equal   clearness   of  objects   in 
the  furthest  background  and  in  the  foreground,  the 
puerile   joy    in    innumerably    repeated    complicated 
decorations  of  the  surface,  the  framing,  with  richly 
figured    wreaths,    ornamental     borders,    or    picture 
margins.     Even  the  standing  formulae  of  manuscript 
miniatures  are  repeated  for  centuries  in  the  paintings, 
viz.,   the   movements   of  all   the   personages   at   the 
Annunciation,  Crucifixion,  Entombment,  and  Ascen- 
sion.    Only  towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century 
does   painting   fully   escape   from   the   still   clinging 
egg-shell  of  the  miniature,  and  grow  accustomed  to 
a   large,   bold    line,   and   a   freedom   of  composition 

65  E 


On  Art  and  Artists 

which  finally  reckons  with  considerations  of  distance, 
and  prevails  upon  itself  to  neglect  comparatively  the 
subsidiary  in  favour  of  the  essential.  The  glorious 
Master  of  Moulins  has,  it  is  clear,  no  longer  the  old 
inherited  habit  of  feeling  himself  banished  to  a  page 
in  a  book.  He  no  longer  shows  the  same  some- 
what mechanical  respect  to  all  work,  principal  and 
accessory.  In  the  "Virgin  and  Child  between  the 
Founders,"  and  particularly  in  the  "  Nativity  "  with  the 
twilight  landscape  in  the  background,  and  the  fat 
poodle  in  front  sitting  on  the  kneeling  cardinal's 
mantle,  the  precedence  of  values  is  observed,  and 
the  painter  reserves  his  piety  and  devotion  for  the 
noble  parts. 

The  author  of  these  pictures — one  of  the  greatest 
painters  that  ever  lived — is  only  known  as  the 
Master  of  Moulins,  or  the  Painter  of  the  Bourbons. 
His  name  was  probably  Jean  Perr^al,  but  there  is 
no  certainty  about  it.  Only  a  few  definite  names 
have  come  down  to  us  from  the  beginnings  of 
modern  art.  We  must  search  for  them  in  the  inven- 
tories and  account  books  of  princely  households  or 
cathedral  chapters.  The  artists  did  not  yet  sign 
their  works  ;  they  indulged  in  no  dreams  of  immor- 
tality. They  did  not  yet  feel  they  were  the  supermen, 
that  the  Renaissance,  later  on,  made  of  them, 
and  that,  in  the  estimation  of  the  upper  class, 
especially  of  its  feminine  and  effeminate  portion, 
they  have  remained  till  the  present  day.  They 

66 


The  Old  French  Masters 

were  honest  and  genuine  artisans,  just  like  other 
respectable  artisans ;  and  in  France  they,  for  the 
most  part,  enrolled  themselves  in  the  Saddlers'  Guild, 
perhaps  because  they,  like  the  latter,  had  originally, 
as  miniature  painters,  to  do  with  parchment,  i.e.y 
a  species  of  leather.  They  regarded  it  as  a  special 
distinction  to  be  appointed  servant, — valet  or  varlet 
— of  a  prince,  on  whose  commissions  for  church 
and  palace  they  lived.  Jean  Malouel  and  his 
pupils,  Jacques  Cone  and  Jean  Mignot,  Jehan 
Fouquet,  his  sons  Jean  and  Francois,  and  his  great 
pupil  Jean  Bourdichon,  Enguerrand  Charonton  and 
Nicolas  Froment,  perhaps  also  Perre"al  and  King 
Ren6  the  Good  (1409-80),  are  perhaps  the  only 
painters  whose  personality  stands  out  clearly  out- 
lined in  the  dawn  of  art  history  before  Clouet,  and 
his  contemporary  Corneille  of  Lyons.  Perhaps  a 
number  of  forgotten  names  may  yet  be  dug  up 
from  archives.  The  obscurity  of  the  few  who  have 
either  been  handed  down  to  us,  or  been  rescued  from 
oblivion  by  industrious  investigators  in  recent  years 
is  a  heavy  injustice.  They  deserve  to  shine  with 
the  same  glory  as  the  most  illustrious  that  Vasari 
has  preserved  for  us  in  a  work  of  amusing  studio 
gossip. 

Jehan  Fouquet  stands  in  a  line  with  the  greatest 
portrait  painters  of  all  times.  He  may  be  named  in 
the  same  breath  with  Holbein — nay,  with  Velasquez. 
His  portrait  of  a  man  in  the  Liechtenstein  Gallery 

67 


On  Art  and  Artists 

at  Vienna,  which  shone  as  one  of  the  gems  of  the 
exhibition,  is  perhaps  the  most  powerful  work  that 
the  great  master  created,  and  the  "  Man  with  the 
Wine-glass,"  in  the  Vienna  collection  of  Count 
Wilczek,  is  hardly  inferior  to  it  in  significance. 

Of  the  numerous  suggestions  of  an  artistic, 
moral,  and  psychological  nature  that  were  the 
outcome  of  this  unique  exhibition,  the  deepest  and 
most  abiding — at  least  for  me — was  that  one  felt 
the  spiritual  condition  of  the  artists  who  created 
these  works  on  commission  and,  for  the  most  part, 
according  to  precise  instructions  from  princes  and 
prelates,  lords  and  governments  of  cities.  In  nearly 
every  one  of  them  is  played  the  great  drama  of 
the  struggle  of  souls  thirsting  for  freedom  with  the 
fearful  oppression  of  intellect  of  the  darkest  Middle 
Ages.  Secret  corners  and  angles,  easily  overlooked 
backgrounds  of  the  pictures,  suggest  already  the 
future  art,  untrammelled  by  the  world,  which  will 
overcome  this  art  of  the  guilds,  with  its  fixed, 
dogmatic  formulae.  A  Fouquet,  a  Bourdichon,  a 
Clouet  who,  in  kings  and  princes  sees,  and  paints 
with  horrible  realism,  poor,  sick,  ugly,  dull  fools, 
stands  no  longer  under  the  control  of  royalty.  He 
is  inwardly  a  disrespectful  rebel,  and  is,  in  his  way, 
a  prelude  to  the  procession  of  the  market-women 
to  Versailles,  which,  two  or  three  centuries  later, 
was  destined  to  overthrow  the  kingdom.  A  master 
of  the  "Mount  Calvary"  (1460),  who  makes  the 

68 


The  Old  French  Masters 

holy  women  and  disciples  stare  with  such  unmoved, 
wooden  countenances  at  the  Body  of  Christ,  not 
because  he  is  incapable  of  painting  sorrow-stricken 
faces  —  all  the  details  of  the  painting  witness  to 
his  artistic  power — but  because  he  contemplates  the 
incident  with  coldness  of  heart,  and  expresses  his 
unbelief  to  the  initiate  as  plainly  as  the  rack  and 
stake  of  the  period  allowed.  In  these  early  works 
there  is  a  very  soft  and  very  weak  rumble  of  thunder 
of  a  very  far-off  storm.  They  are  a  first  indistinct 
announcement  of  the  Revolutions  that  are  slowly 
preparing. 


69 


V 
A   CENTURY   OF   FRENCH   ART 

SINCERITY  did  not  rule  in  all  parts  of  the  Paris 
Universal  Exhibition  of  1900,  but  a  quickening  air 
of  freedom  was  breathed  in  the  great  palace  of  art. 
The  temporary  proprietors  of  this  colossal  building, 
the  French  artists,  did  not  pretend  to  any  motive 
that  they  did  not  possess.  "  Make  room !  Out  of 
the  way !  Out ! "  we  fancied  we  heard  from  all 
the  dusky  corners  of  the  vast  halls  in  a  voice  of 
thunder.  "  Foreigners  from  both  worlds  To  the 
south  wing  with  them!  In  the  corne:!  Under 
the  staircase !  That's  quite  too  good  fo«-  them. 
The  dead  ?  The  famous  of  yesterday  ?  What  do 
the  disturbers  want?  Haven't  they  had  their 
share  of  ribbons,  titles,  commissions  from  the  State, 
and  other  forms  of  the  artist's  ideals?  Back 
with  you !  To  the  furthermost  building  in  the 
rear !  If  any  one  wants  to  make  journeys  of 
discovery,  he  can  steer  away.  The  chief  buildings, 
the  foregrounds,  the  splendid  halls  for  us,  the  chers 

70 


A  Century  of  French  Art 

maitres  of  to-day.  We  are  the  strongest,  therefore 
we  need  do  no  violence  to  our  feelings.  We  are 
alive,  therefore  we  are  right." 

Certainly,  certainly.  I  do  not  contradict  this ; 
but  it  suits  my  inclination  to  wander  past  the 
conquerors  of  the  day  to  the  shadows  in  the  back 
premises,  into  the  remote  and  also,  as  to  equip- 
ment, significantly  neglected  halls  of  the  Century 
Exhibition,  to  the  great  vault  in  which  is  collected 
that  which  was  to  make  plain  the  development 
of  French  art  from  the  Revolution  to  Carnot,  the 
grandson.  What  remains  when  the  human  being 
who  gives  dinners,  haunts  antechambers,  has  cousins 
in  the  Ministry  of  the  Fine  Arts,  whispers  malice 
in  one's  ear,  ceases  to  acknowledge  greetings,  and 
writes  flattering  letters,  has  fallen  to  dust ;  when 
rivals  and  parasites  have  disappeared;  when  the  puffs 
of  toadies,  and  the  no  less  valuable  ones  of  envious 
men  and  poison-boilers,  are  hushed  and  forgotten? 

Not  much,  and  there  lies  the  melancholy  humour 
of  such  wanderings  through  the  realm  of  shadows. 
The  only  feature  that  always  wounded  me  somewhat 
in  the  "  Divine  Comedy,"  is  that  Dante  awards  his 
curses  and  execrations  on  the  departed  according 
to  the  rank  they  occupied  among  the  living.  The 
invectives  on  the  poor  soul  of  a  pope  have  three 
stripes,  those  on  a  prince,  two,  and  on  a  lord,  one. 
That  is  an  inartistic  forgetfulness  of  the  frame  chosen 
by  Dante  for  his  poem.  If  he  remained  always 

71 


On  Art  and  Artists 

mindful  of  his  programme  of  death  and  hell,  he 
would  not  be  able  to  distinguish  crowns  or  purple 
mantles  in  the  red  illumination  of  the  under-world. 
The  laughing  and  sighing  philosophy  of  Hamlet — 
alas,  poor  Yorick  ! — stands  higher  than  the  resentful 
fury  of  the  passionate  Italian,  who  makes  the 
hierarchy  overstep  the  threshold  of  the  grave.  It 
is  perhaps  the  most  profound  usage  of  the  French 
language  that  they  deprive  the  dead  of  the 
"  Monsieur,"  to  which  every  living  man,  with  the 
exception  of  those  criminally  prosecuted  and  con- 
demned, has  a  claim.  The  dead  has  no  longer  a 
title — so  much  more  sorry  a  fate  for  him,  if,  when  he 
was  alive,  he  was  nothing  more  than  a  title. 

The  practice  is  even  here  somewhat  different 
from  the  pure  theory.  The  deceased  is  no  longer 
"  Excellency,"  "  Professor,"  not  even  "  Mr."  But  the 
usage  of  contemporaries  to  give  him  a  title  is  still 
expressed  in  the  respectful  tone  in  which  they 
pronounce  his  now  naked  name,  and  in  which  one 
possessed  with  a  delicate  sense  of  hearing  perceives 
the  rustle  of  all  the  tinsel  that  surrounded  him  when 
alive.  In  this  tone,  however,  the  name  becomes 
familiar  to  the  younger  ones,  who,  without  thinking, 
continue  this  veneration,  unconscious  that  their  accent 
expresses  respect  because  the  bearer  of  the  name 
so  pronounced  was  once  a  Grand  Officer  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour  and  an  Academician.  Thus,  my 
dear  Schiller,  are  your  confident  words  to  be  under- 

72 


A  Century  of  French  Art 

stood,  you  who  would  never  perceive  the  weft 
of  vulgarity  in  the  ways  of  man :  "  He  who  has 
satisfied  the  best  men  of  his  time  has  lived  for 
all  time."  Certainly,  if  by  "  best "  we  would  under- 
stand the  best  placed,  best  paid,  invested  with  the 
best  office,  or  the  best  decorated.  He  who  during 
his  lifetime  has  belonged  to  those  favoured  by  the 
grace  of  official  newspapers,  who  has  been  gauged 
by  them  and  provided  with  a  "  full "  mark,  will  be 
recognised  for  all  time  as  full  without  further  test. 
The  Pantheon  is  the  continuation  of  the  minister's 
official  rooms,  the  golden  book  of  spiritual  history 
an  anthology  from  the  Official  Gazette  and  the  Army 
List,  for  the  use  of  the  children  of  later  centuries. 
If  I  must  emphasise  the  essential :  the  appraise- 
ment even  of  the  artist,  therefore  of  the  most 
individual  man  that  exists,  is  the  outcome  of  social, 
not  individual,  factors,  or  of  the  latter  only  when 
they  are  socially  successful,  and,  therefore,  themselves 
become  social  factors.  There  are,  I  admit,  always 
proud  —  perhaps  only  haughty  —  natures  with  an 
anarchistic,  anti-social  trait,  who  will  not  recognise 
any  arrangement  or  fixing  of  the  community,  not 
even  its  hierarchy  of  fame,  and  clench  their  fists 
against  laurel  crowns  just  as  they  do  against  crowns. 
Their  rebellion,  however,  is  seldom  successful.  I 
know  of  no  case  of  a  bomb-thrower  having  destroyed 
a  Pantheon. 

But   as   we  do  not  take  ourselves  tragically,  do 
73 


On  Art  and  Artists 

not  begin  our  own  verdict  with  the  threatening 
formula,  "  In  the  name  of  the  Law,"  and  do  not 
exact  any  submission  from  others,  we  are  always 
entitled  to  be  of  our  own  opinion,  and  to  let  the 
dead  influence  us  without  prejudice,  untroubled  by 
the  distinctions  of  rank  which  were  bestowed  on  them 
in  life,  and  were  buried  with  them.  Such  a  method 
of  observation  is  unhistorical,  but  subjectively  fruitful ; 
it  leads  to  self-emancipation  from  many  superstitions. 
The  Century  Exhibition  of  French  painting  was 
far  from  being  complete ;  it  was  incomparably  more 
fragmentary  than  the  Louvre  Museum,  which  is  also 
not  without  gaps.  But  it  afforded  a  general  view 
of  the  art  development  of  the  period  represented,  and 
it  gave  the  independent  man  the  chance  of  correcting 
numerous  opinions  which  had  taken  hold  of  him  from 
study  and  reading. 

It  began  with  the  masters  who  created  and 
flourished  before  the  deluge  of  1789 — Watteau, 
Greuze,  Fragonard,  Vigee-Lebrun.  The  three  first 
had,  for  two  generations,  sunk  deeply  in  general 
estimation.  Then  the  force  of  fashion  raised  them 
up  again  to  dizzy  heights  of  fame.  I  do  not  believe 
that  they  will  maintain  themselves  there.  It  pleases 
the  reactionaries  to  glorify  the  ancien  regime  at  the 
expense  of  the  Revolution,  and  to  this  planned  and 
deliberate  toil  belongs  also  the  unmeasured  over- 
estimate of  eighteenth  century  art  and  artistic  work. 
But  it  is  politics,  not  aesthetics — no  taste  for  art,  but 

74 


A  Century  of  French  Art 

a  tendency.  In  reality,  the  darlings  of  the  age  of 
the  Pompadour  and  Louis  XVI.  were  petty  masters, 
mere  fillings  of  a  particular  frame,  and,  lifted  out 
of  this,  they  lose  their  best  qualities. 

Watteau  still  holds  his  ground  most  easily,  for 
he  is  an  amiable  teller  of  stones  that  are  agreeable 
if  nothing  of  a  more  serious  character  occupies 
one's  mind.  He  draws  elegantly,  although  without 
pedantry ;  his  colouring  is  cheerful,  and  suits  admir- 
ably his  hushed,  silken  carpets,  coquettish  Gobelins, 
and  light  lacquered  furniture.  He  is  the  painter 
of  joyous  days  wherein  life  seems  an  eternal  feast. 
Gracious  spring  bedecks  the  earth,  his  men  and 
women  are  all  young  and  handsome,  his  ladies  wear 
entrancing  toilettes  and  coiffures,  and  his  gentlemen 
silk  doublets  and  lace  shirt-frills.  Even  if  they  dress 
as  shepherds,  they  are  laughingly  addressed  thus : 
"  I  know  you,  fair  masque ;  you  are  a  marquis  in 
disguise  with  your  charming  friend,  the  duchess." 
Rosy  angels  hover  about  them,  and  mingle  familiarly 
in  their  pastimes.  They  have  nothing  on  earth  to  do 
except  pay  each  other  witty  compliments  and  play  at 
love.  I  understand  why  American  multi-millionaires 
pay  any  price  to  be  surrounded  by  Watteaus.  It  is 
really  honourable  to  the  artists  of  our  time  that  the 
Trust  magnates  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  finding 
or  rearing  painters  who  would  flatter  their  egotism 
through  servile  suggestions  of  a  Watteau  aspect  of 
the  world. 

75 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Fragonard  appears  in  a  secondary  position  besides 
Watteau.  He  is  drier,  and  with  less  "  swing."  He 
is  not  really  present  in  his  heart  at  the  pastimes  he 
paints.  Watteau  is  himself  a  guest  at  his  festivals; 
Fragonard  takes  part  in  the  soirees  only  under  a 
sealed  order.  The  former  amuses  himself,  the  latter 
amuses  the  person  who  gives  him  the  commission. 

Greuze  lives  on  the  fame  bestowed  on  him  by 
the  grateful  Diderot.  He  was  enthusiastic  for 
Diderot's  tearful  bourgeois  tragedy,  and  Diderot 
repaid  him  with  enthusiasm  for  his  painting ;  but 
we  have  no  longer  any  grounds,  I  suppose,  for 
regarding  him  with  Diderot's  eyes.  When  he  paints 
his  eternal  model  of  the  "  Broken  Pitcher "  in  the 
Louvre,  and  of  his  sundry  counterparts  of  it  in  the 
Century  Exhibition,  he  is  pitilessly  pretty.  When 
he  sets  great  dramatic  scenes  in  the  Diderot  style 
on  the  stage — the  "Village  Betrothal,"  the  "Father's 
Curse,"  etc. — he  is  depressingly  melodramatic.  His 
young  maiden  is  marvellously  pretty  and  tame,  and 
will  always  delight  childlike  spectators  with  the 
charm  of  her  blooming  girlhood.  He  suffered  him- 
self to  be  infected  in  Italy  by  Guido  Reni's  sweetness, 
and  only  transplanted  his  soft  beauties,  rolling  their 
eyes,  from  paradise  to  the  middle-class  earth.  He 
is  simply  the  Bouguereau  of  his  age.  That  name 
comprises  all  that  can  be  said  of  him  in  praise  or 
blame.  Greuze  is  Bouguereau's  superior  in  so  far 
as  he  paints  more  vigorously,  and  forms  his  pretty 

76 


A  Century  of  French  Art 

ingenues  of  real  flesh  —  not,  like  Bouguereau,  of 
alabaster  and  sugar-candy. 

Beside  the  softness  of  Greuze,  Madame  Vig£e- 
Lebrun  seems  a  man  and  a  fighter.  In  a  century 
of  gallantry  she  alone  was  not  gallant.  She  painted 
women's  likenesses,  and  did  not  pay  court  to  her 
models ;  but  she  elevated  them,  and  gave  them 
meaning.  Where  the  male  painters  of  the  period 
saw  only  beauty  -  patches,  she  suspected  she  saw 
a  soul.  If  we  look  at  these  women  with  curiously 
poised  heads,  gazing  boldly  out  of  their  frames, 
they  say  proudly  and  calmly :  "  I  am  no  trying- 
on  hand ;  I  am  no  creature  of  luxury ;  I  am  no 
flesh  for  lust ;  I  am  a  personage."  At  a  distance  of  a 
hundred  years  Vigee-Lebrun  is  a  forerunner  of  the 
now  innumerable  American  painters  of  emancipated 
womanhood.  This  brave  woman,  who  was  beautiful, 
and  did  not  overprize,  nay,  hardly  prized  her  beauty, 
was  an  asserter  of  women's  rights  long  before  the  word 
or  the  thing  was  invented. 

Prudhon  was  represented  by  a  "  Zephyr,"  which 
has  the  same  peculiarities  as  his  "  Crucifixion "  and 
"  Crime  and  Punishment "  in  the  Louvre.  He  models 
a  human  body  so  that  one  must  take  one's  hat  off 
to  it.  He  has  the  infallible  feeling  of  the  great 
Spaniards  for  the  value  of  light  and  shade  ;  but  what 
will  always  stand  in  the  way  of  his  being  loved  and 
not  merely  respected  is  his  hatred  of  colour.  He 
confines  himself  to  a  strict  black  and  white  style, 

77 


On  Art  and  Artists 

which  banishes  all  gladness  and  discourages  the  most 
willing  admiration. 

And  now  the  great  deluge  breaks  in,  and,  like  a 
sea-god  David  emerges  over  the  raging  waves.  It 
is  really  with  him  that  the  century  begins,  for  what 
preceded  him  was  the  art  of  the  ancien  regime  and 
of  the  Trianon.  He  had  at  the  Exhibition  a 
"  Distribution  of  the  Colours,"  an  "  Ugolino,"  some 
portraits  ;  all  of  the  most  genuine  David  in  choice 
of  subject  as  well  as  treatment.  Everywhere  the 
capricious  "  seeing  yellow  "  which  seems  to  have  been 
a  peculiarity  of  his  eye ;  everywhere  the  grandly 
imposing,  professorial  infallibility  of  drawing  which 
knows  no  first  trying,  no  anxious  searching,  no  hot 
struggle  with  the  never  quite  attainable  Nature. 
David  compels  with  an  imperious  Medusa-glance  the 
ever-stirring,  the  ever-flowing,  so  that  it  becomes 
fixed,  and  he  can  shackle  the  now  immovable  vision 
in  brazen  outlines.  So  his  human  beings  appear 
statues,  or  mimes,  which  maintain  a  pose,  and  his 
most  blameless  anatomies  acquire  a  tendency  towards 
the  artificial.  David's  mood  is  always  uniformly 
high-pitched.  Good-humoured  people,  who  would 
like  to  see  the  majestic  man  in  shirt  sleeves  for  once, 
lurK  in  vain  for  him  to  unbutton  himself.  He  never 
forsakes  the  decoration  and  costume  of  high  tragedy. 
At  first  he  sought  the  drama  in  ancient  history  or 
world-famed  poetry.  Afterwards,  he  found  it  in  his 
immediate  surroundings.  Fate  vouchsafed  him  the 

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favour  of  living  in  a  time,  the  pathos  of  which  was 
mightier  than  that  of  Athens,  Sparta,  or  Rome.  He 
satisfied  his  deepest  longings  when,  in  the  "  Sabine 
Women,"  he  preached  to  the  murderous  factions 
among  his  people  reconciliation  and  brotherly  love, 
and,  in  "The  Distribution  of  the  Colours"  and  the 
"Coronation,"  he  made  Napoleon  the  equal  of  the 
heroes  of  mythology.  He  is,  therefore,  always 
genuine,  even  when  he  may  seem  to  the  superficial 
gaze  theatrical.  It  is  the  difference  between  a  tone 
naturally  sustained  during  moments  of  life  at  high 
pressure,  and  declamation  learnt  from  a  teacher  of 
rhetoric. 

His  pupils,  imitators,  and  rivals  have,  on  the 
contrary,  not  succeeded  in  avoiding  declamation. 
Gerard,  Gros,  Riesener,  and  Drolling  were,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  the  greatest  flatterers  that 
ever  painteH  portraits.  Because  David  represented 
Napoleon  in  the  character  of  an  Alexander  of 
Macedon,  or  an  ancient  god  of  war,  the  others,  the 
smaller  painters,  in  their  portraits  gave  to  even  the 
ordinary  men  of  the  period  the  deportment  of 
Olympian  gods.  Only  Gerard's  "  Letitia,"  who, 
too,  bore  apotheosis  most  easily,  is  a  good  modest 
human  being.  All  the  other  women  are  Juno  or 
Pallas  Athene ;  all  the  men  Mars  or  Achilles.  The 
contrast  between  the  commonplace  physiognomies 
and  the  magnificence  of  their  appearance  is  now 
and  then  so  violent  that  one  is  led  to  surmise 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

that  the  painter  wanted  to  make  fun  of  his  models. 
"  Charles  X.  in  his  Coronation  Robes,"  by  Ingres, 
seems,  for  example,  virtually  a  parody  of  David's 
"Coronation  of  Napoleon." 

Gericault  stands   an   examination   of  his   title   to 
fame  badly.     He  has  not  so  correct  an  eye  for  the 
figures  of  horses  as  was  believed  before  instantaneous 
photographs.      His   portraits   of  soldiers   are   really 
more  crude  than  powerful.     Even  the  sketch  for  the 
"  Raft  of  the  Medusa,"  reveals  evidence  of  straining 
after  effect  which  our   pious  admiration  refused   to 
notice  in  the  colossal  work  in  the  Louvre.     On  the 
other  hand,  the  figure  of  Louis  Leopold  Boilly  gained 
strangely  in  the  Century  Exhibition.     Up  till  then  I 
knew  only  his  "  Arrival  of  a  Diligence  at  a  Posting- 
house,"  in  the  Louvre,  and  I  did  not  rate  him  very 
highly  on  account  of  the  affected  atelier  light  of  this 
otherwise   prettily   studied   little   picture.      Here  he 
disclosed  himself  as  a  great  philosopher  and  satirist. 
One  picture  represents  a  popular  merry-making  with 
wine   gratis,    another    a    free    performance    at    the 
Ambigu  -  Comique    Theatre.      There    the    crowd    is 
fighting  murderously  over  a  drink  that  can  be  had 
for  nothing  ;  half-grown  hobbledehoys  throttle  bestial 
greybeards  ;  bullies  claw  hold  of  furies  ;  dreadful  feet 
trample  on  faces  and   necks   in   the   mad  storming 
of  the  wine  supplies,  and  the  victors  in  this  struggle 
have  their  reward :  they  lie  on  the  ground  bestially 
drunk.     The  scenes  at  the  entrance  of  the  theatre  are 

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not  quite  so  vulgar.  There  is  a  less  dogged  scramble 
for  intellectual  enjoyment  than  for  that  of  the  palate. 
Yet  here,  too,  the  most  brutal  lack  of  considera- 
tion and  greedy  selfishness  triumph ;  here,  too,  the 
strong  man  overmasters  the  weak ;  here,  too,  among 
beings  who  seem  to  belie  their  human  form,  the 
law  of  the  jungle  holds  good ;  and  here,  too,  poor 
people  pay  for  a  little  doubtful  pleasure  with  the 
sufferings,  dangers,  and  exertions  of  a  storming  of 
the  Malakoff.  In  the  foreground  of  both  pictures 
stands  a  group  of  well-dressed  persons  who,  half  in 
pity,  half  in  disgust,  look  at  the  disorderly  pushing 
of  the  rabble  from  a  respectful  distance.  These 
rich  people  have  the  rdle  of  teaching  the  moral 
of  the  fable.  They  express  the  sociological  thought 
of  the  painter.  Boilly  deplores  the  low  moral  con- 
dition of  the  masses,  and  reproaches  the  dominant 
class  with  having  degraded  them  to  beasts,  when  it 
pretends  to  give  them  a  feast.  He  rejects  with  utter 
disdain  the  dogma  of  equality,  yet  without  haughti- 
ness, for  he  has  for  the  disinherited  the  somewhat 
condescending,  yet  warm  pity  of  a  genuine  patrician. 
These  are  extremely  modern  —  I  might  call  them 
Toynbee-feelings — and  they  are  expressed  with  an 
exact,  judicious  brush  that  can  conjure  forth  the 
confused  turmoil  of  a  great,  raging  multitude,  and, 
nevertheless,  remain  faithful  in  all  details.  Boilly 
was  decidedly  a  master. 

The  Century  Exhibition  also  gave  the  opportunity 
81  F 


On  Art  and  Artists 

for  a  discovery,  not  only  to  me,  but  also  to  all  who 
brought  to  if  an  open  mind.  There  is  a  painter, 
Trutat,  of  whom  no  one  had  ever  heard  anything. 
Seekers  who  investigated  the  provincial  newspaper 
of  1840-60  succeeded  in  discovering  one  or  two 
articles  about  him.  That  is  all.  He  once  or  twice 
exhibited  in  the  "  Salon,"  but  the  "  Salon "  reports 
of  the  time  make  no  mention  of  him.  He  lived  in 
the  first  half  of  the  last  century,  and  died  at  the 
age  of  twenty-four.  Before  his  picture — one  single 
picture — men  were  amazed,  and  women  stood  with 
moist  eyes.  It  is  a  double  picture ;  in  the  fore- 
ground, a  fair  young  man,  pale  with  sickness,  with 
deep  blue  eyes  and  a  proud,  wild  mane ;  his  firm 
forehead  full  of  impatient  dreams  of  joyous  creations, 
fame,  and  happiness,  yet,  in  his  hollow  cheeks,  faint 
shadows  of  death.  Behind  him,  half  obscured  in 
dusk,  a  woman's  profile,  his  mother's  head  ;  a  good 
Samaritan  with  tender  gaze,  and  lips  closed  in 
sadness,  which  once  sang  cradle  -  songs,  but  have 
learnt  silence  in  the  sick-room.  In  its  composition 
there  is  a  reminiscence  of  Ary  Scheffer's  "  St  Augustin 
and  St  Monica,"  in  the  Louvre.  But  it  is  incom- 
parably more  profound,  for  Trutat  depicts  himself, 
not  saints  whom  the  power  of  imagination  has  first 
to  bring  before  him.  The  painting  is  wonderful, 
firm  and  full  as  that  of  Franz  Hals — I  deliberately 
utter  this  strong  statement — so  surely  and  organically 
matured  that  one  traces  beneath  the  skin  all  the 

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A  Century  of  French  Art 

most  delicate  muscles  and  bones.  And  add  to  this 
technique,  of  which  one  does  not  discern  how  he 
could  have  acquired  it  in  a  fleeting  morning  of 
life,  the  intensity  of  feeling  which  has  raised  the 
work  to  the  rank  of  those  high  creations  in  which 
a  soul  is  revealed.  The  picture  is  full  as  a  swan's 
song,  of  foreboding  and  love.  The  great  youth  does 
not  understand  himself  alone,  without  his  mother — 
the  dear  mother  must  be  with  him,  if  he  goes  out 
to  the  market  among  people.  Shall  she  nurse  him  ? 
Shall  she  protect  him  ?  Can  he  dispense  with  her 
for  a  moment  as  he  must  be  taken  away  from  her 
so  soon?  All  this  is  in  that  mysterious  picture, 
and  it  was  in  it  when  Trutat,  though  he  did  not 
know  it,  painted  his  own  requiem.  Only  nobody 
then  understood  the  riddle ;  Trutat  as  little  as  the 
rest.  He  is  another  Regnault,  only  a  still  more 
genuine  one.  And  no  one  has  made  lamentation 
about  him,  although  his  tragedy  is  more  painful 
than  Regnault's.  For  the  latter  attained  im- 
mortality in  the  apotheosis  of  death  in  battle,  whilst 
miserable  consumption  slew  Trutat  ingloriously. 

The  Romantic  fever  begins  to  seize  the  century. 
The  painters  hasten  to  hang  round  them  the 
botanical  box,  and  seek  the  blue  flower.  The 
first  to  go  forth  into  the  moon-illumined,  witching 
night  was  Chasseriau  !  Poor  ChasseViau  !  It  would 
have  better  suited  his  bent  to  paint  salons  with 
rich  Empire-furniture,  wherein  respectably  dressed 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

citizens  sit  with  their  wives  and  daughters,  and 
pleasantly  tell  each  other  the  anecdotes  of  the 
day.  His  portrait  of  the  two  sisters  in  red  shawls 
and  yellow  plaited  dresses  shows  this  —  a  neat, 
pretty,  bourgeois  painting,  which  denies  itself  all 
enthusiasm,  and  all  soaring.  But  now  the  tarantula 
stings  him,  and  he  occupies  himself  only  with 
obsolete  subjects  such  as  Orpheus,  ckdtelaines,  fairy- 
tale princesses  with  black  slaves,  Macbeth  and  the 
three  witches.  The  last  picture  is  particularly 
characteristic  of  him.  The  three  witches  have  their 
white  beards  and  pointed  noses,  as  prescribed  by 
the  romantic  code ;  but  they  are  merely  grotesque, 
but  not  in  the  least  weird.  We  have  the  im- 
pression that  they  have  met  in  a  peaceful  country 
in  order  to  gossip  about  their  neighbours,  and 
make  coffee.  They  publicly  proffer  the  knight, 
who  should  be  Macbeth,  a  small  bowl.  The  heath 
by  night  lacks  every  trace  of  mood  ;  the  ugly  old 
women  every  touch  of  the  demoniac.  Chasseriau 
painted,  just  as  J.  Fr.  Kind — the  ["  Freischiitz  "]  Kind 
— wrote  poetry. 

I  am  afraid  I  must  likewise  be  guilty  of  heresy 
in  respect  of  another  great  man ;  but  Delacroix,  too, 
fails  to  justify  the  idolatry  people  have  displayed 
and,  to  some  extent,  still  display  towards  him.  I 
do  not  misjudge  his  joyous  coloriture,  although  his 
harmonies  are  rather  loud  than  grand.  I  am  not 
blind  to  the  characteristic  mobility  of  his  composi- 

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A  Century  of  French  Art 

tion,  although  it  is  generally  far  more  a  stagey 
flourish  than  assertion  of  strength  in  the  service  of 
a  will  conscious  of  what  it  is  aiming  at.  What 
excites  in  me,  however,  unconquerable  opposition  is 
his  phrasing.  If  any  art  demands  intuition  it  is 
painting.  Delacroix,  however,  usually  has  not 
exercised  intuition,  but  has  clothed  with  the  cool 
work  of  his  brain  abstract  thoughts  in  conventional 
forms.  For  this,  look  at  "  Greece  expiring  on  the 
Ruins  of  Missalonghi" — a  picture  which  was  once 
of  enormous  influence  and  highly  praised.  On  some 
disordered  masonry  stands  a  young  lady  in  the  bal 
masque  dress  of  a  Greek,  who  has  no  thought  of 
giving  up  the  ghost,  but  is  playing  a  part  in  robust 
health,  and  will  change  her  dress,  and  have  supper 
later.  At  some  distance  behind  her  we  catch  sight 
of  a  young  negro  in  the  uniform  of  a  Janissary, 
climbing  a  rubbish  heap,  brandishing  a  flag  with  a 
crescent  on  it,  and  a  curved  sabre.  This  slightly 
painted  Turkish  warrior  appears  not  to  see  the 
young  Greek  girl ;  at  all  events  he  does  nothing  to 
her,  and  does  not  even  threaten  her.  There  is  no 
association  between  the  two  figures ;  the  action  is 
disconnected.  At  most  the  Turk  is  interesting  as 
an  acrobat  or  banner-swinger.  No  murderous  pro- 
pensities are  noticeable  in  him.  The  countenance  of 
the  Greek  lady  is  pale  and  weary ;  but  a  rest  in  bed 
seems  the  only  thing  she  needs.  It  says  much  for 
the  keenness  of  their  Philhellenism  that  this  picture 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

could  move  the  people  of  the  period.  Delacroix 
had,  however,  no  intuition  at  all  when  he  painted 
it ;  he  only  illustrated  an  unplastic,  insipid  phrase. 

His  other  paintings  are  mostly  illustrations  of  a 
text.  "  Comedians  and  Buffoons  "  were  unmistakably 
suggested  by  Victor  Hugo.  Confused  ideas  occur 
to  him.  Thus  "  The  Good  Samaritan "  was  not 
painted  to  the  passage  in  the  Gospel,  but  to  a 
story  of  chivalry ;  for  the  gentle  benefactor  takes 
the  sick  man  on  his  charger  —  he  is  a  mounted 
Samaritan ! — just  as  a  knight  takes  the  noble  lady 
he  is  carrying  off. 

Delacroix  was  a  literary  painter ;  we  know  that 
from  his  correspondence  ;  but  without  that,  his  pictures 
would  betray  it.  He  read  much  more  in  books  than 
in  nature,  and  he  supplied  paintings  that  gave  evidence 
of  education  and  much  reading,  in  which  the  art- 
hating,  blind-souled  Philistines  of  education  delight 
royally.  It  may  be  that  the  confusion  of  his 
portrayal  and  the  loudness  of  his  palette  was  felt 
by  his  contemporaries  as  a  deliverance  from  the 
coldness  and  precision  of  David's  school.  I  suspect, 
however,  his  earliest  admirers  valued  him  chiefly 
because  he  fed  on  the  same  books,  plays,  and  news- 
papers as  themselves. 

Ary  Scheffer  stands  in  the  same  spiritual  plane 
as  Delacroix,  but  lacks  the  keenly  joyous  colour  and 
the  theatricality  of  his  stage  -  setting.  Schubert's 
songs  and  Schumann's  are  music  even  without  the 

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A  Century  of  French  Art 

lyric  text,  and  what  music !  I  cannot  imagine  what 
Ary  Scheffer's  pictures  from  Shakespeare,  Goethe, 
and  Byron  would  be  without  the  poets  and  their 
poems.  His  picture  in  the  Century  Exhibition, 
"The  Dead  ride  fast,"  is,  if  I  exclude  from  my 
conception  my  remembrance  of  Burger's  ballad,  an 
almost  touching  example  of  tastelessness.  Leonora's 
dishevelled  hair,  blown  by  the  wind  into  a  stiff, 
horizontal  posit'on,  is  supposed,  for  instance,  to 
illustrate  the  swiftness  of  the  ride — a  notion  which 
may  have  seemed  to  Scheffer  terrible,  but  is  comic. 
Horace  Vernet  had  a  "  Mazeppa,"  of  course  a 
big  modern  battle,  and  several  likenesses.  He  is 
as  popular  as  on  the  first  day,  and  will  always 
remain  so  as  long  as  children  play  with  tin  soldiers 
and  the  picture  sheets  of  Epinal — the  French  Neu- 
Ruppin  —  find  a  ready  sale.  How  he  dazzles ! 
He  does  so  to  a  degree  which  deserves  admiration. 
From  a  distance  his  pictures  appear  to  be  some- 
thing ;  one  must  look  at  them  quite  closely  to  see 
that  they  are  nothing,  absolutely  nothing.  The 
colossal  canvas  is  apparently  full  of  men  :  thousands 
of  soldiers  march,  encamp,  storm,  fight ;  but,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  not  a  single  figure  is  painted  ;  the 
whole  pomp  of  war  and  victory  is  composed  of  little 
stencilled  gingerbread  men,  without  any  bones  in  their 
bodies,  and  with  scarcely  the  remotest  resemblance 
to  human  beings.  Could  Horace  Vernet  draw? 
Had  he  really  any  other  conception  of  the  human 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

form  than  that  of  an  inflated  india-rubber  figure? 
In  Paris  and  Versailles  I  have  seen  many  paintings 
by  him,  but  I  cannot  yet  answer  these  questions. 
Horace  Vernet  is  the  fourth  of  a  dynasty  of  painters  : 
the  first,  Antoine,  was  great  at  little  figures  on  sedan- 
chair  panels ;  the  second,  Joseph,  painted  the  well- 
known  series  of  French  harbours ;  the  third,  Carle, 
is  a  master  in  depicting  horses ;  Horace,  the  fourth, 
is  the  weakest  of  them  all,  incomparably  inferior 
in  ability  to  his  father,  grandfather,  and  great- 
grandfather. He  alone,  however,  has  attained  fame, 
and  his  renown  throws  his  ancestors  into  the  shade. 
The  wheel  of  fortune  now  and  then  plays  immoral 
jokes  of  this  sort,  perhaps  in  order  to  teach  its 
own  futility. 

Daumier  was  known  to  me  and,  I  suppose,  most 
people,  only  as  a  draughtsman.  We  learnt  now  to 
prize  him  as  a  painter  of  high  rank.  His  numerous 
paintings  are  illustrations  to  "  Don  Quixote,"  romantic 
merry  -  Andrews,  street-singers,  Moliere's  Malade 
Imaginaire,  and  a  crowded  group  of  lawyers  in  cap 
and  gown.  His  manner  is  the  same  in  oil  as  in 
lead-pencil  and  crayon-drawing :  his  lines  of  move- 
ment broad  and  firm,  the  outlines  blunted,  and  now 
and  again  rubbed ;  all  his  figures  mysteriously 
surrounded  in  mist,  yet  all  so  clearly  and  faultlessly 
represented  that  one  is  never  led  to  suspect  that 
their  mysteriousness  is  a  trick  to  hide  carelessness 
or  lack  of  skill.  Even  his  oil-painting  is  really 

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A  Century  of  French  Art 

caricature,  but  discreet  caricature.  The  nobler 
method  instils  into  him  self-respect,  and  preserves 
him  from  caricature ;  he  just  marks  roguishly  the 
burlesque  features,  but  does  not  diverge  from 
reality.  Thus  his  lawyers  are  portraits,  but  they 
look  so  maliciously  intelligent,  so  inexorably  pene- 
trating, that  we  can  doubt  of  this  or  that  head 
whether  it  is  a  likeness  or  a  caricature.  Let  us  say 
this :  the  model  will  take  it  for  a  caricature,  but  his 
friends  will  regard  it  as  a  portrait.  Daumier  is  a 
solitary ;  he  is  akin  to  none  of  his  contemporaries, 
yet  an  example  of  the  migration  of  souls ;  for  in 
him  Hogarth  comes  to  life  again,  but  a  Hogarth 
who  for  his  part  would  be  animated  by  a  spark 
of  Rembrandt's  spirit. 

Suddenly  another  solitary  appears  in  the  ranks  of 
the  allied  men  of  school  and  tradition,  viz.,  Millet. 
Precipitation  would  infer :  the  romantic  is  overcome ; 
a  new  generation  with  new  modes  of  feeling  arises  ; 
the  nerves  of  the  century  begin  to  vibrate  according 
to  a  new  rhythm.  That  is  sheer  nonsense ;  nothing 
has  been  overcome.  The  romantic  masters  still 
form  romantic  pupils,  the  crowd  still  feels  in  the 
traditional  way  ;  the  range  of  themes  and  the  fashion 
of  treating  them  remain  what  they  have  been  for  a 
generation,  but  amidst  the  dependent,  the  docile 
ones,  the  imitator  forms  for  himself,  by  the  law 
of  elective  affinity,  a  divergent  group — the  group  of 
the  forest-folk  of  Barbizon — and  amidst  this  group 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

steps  forth  an  individual  man  who  forgets  the 
master's  atelier,  who,  in  painting,  thinks  of  neither 
the  salon  nor  the  art-dealers,  who  looks  not  into 
books  and  newspapers  nor  on  prototypes,  but  out 
into  the  world,  and  on  that  account  falls  completely 
out  of  the  century. 

If  we  follow  up  the  development  of  art  in  the 
Exhibition,  we  may  easily  fall  into  the  error  of 
thinking  that  with  Millet  one  epoch  closes  and 
another  begins.  Such  was  not  the  case  in  reality. 
The  contemporaries  who  appreciated  Millet  were  a 
diminishing  few.  Official  art  despised  him.  There 
were  no  distinctions  for  him  on  the  part  of  the 
State.  The  critical  phrase-makers  knew  nothing  of 
him  or  mocked  him  horribly.  The  rich  connois- 
seurs passed  him  by.  A  very  small  congregation 
of  moderately  well-off  admirers,  whose  valuation 
appraised  their  most  honest  admiration  at  1,000 
francs  at  most,  bought  his  pictures  at  prices  which 
just  made  it  possible  for  him  to  live  in  Barbizon 
in  wooden  shoes  and  a  blouse,  and  to  bring  up 
his  numerous  family  on  potatoes  and  bacon.  But 
as  he  was  a  personality  he  succeeded  —  though 
only  after  his  death.  He  made  a  school,  like 
every  one  who  has  something  to  teach.  He  gained 
influence  on  the  views  of  the  creators,  the  critics,  and 
the  public.  People  began  to  understand  his  speech, 
nay,  to  feel  that  what  he  said  was  beautiful.  But 
to  this  day  there  is  no  Millet  epoch  in  French  art, 

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A  Century  of  French  Art 

and  his  fame  is  really  an  optical  delusion.  His 
works  did  not  bring  him  into  the  mouth  of 
the  masses,  but  the  caprice  of  a  millionaire.  On 
the  day  when  it  occurred  to  M.  Chauchard  to  pay 
600,000  francs  for  Millet's  "  Angelus,"  snobs  of  both 
worlds  took  off  their  hats  and  murmured  in  a  voice 
hushed  with  reverence :  "  That  must  be  a  great 
painter."  As  we  see,  the  world's  fame  is  but  a 
question  of  money.  Many  more  men  are  able  to 
reckon  than  are  able  to  feel  the  beauty  of  art, 
and,  to  the  vast  majority,  its  price  is  the  infallible, 
the  one  key  to  the  understanding  of  a  work. 

I  must  say  that  the  millionaire  who  acted  as 
Millet's  herald  of  fame,  had  no  sense  of  proportion. 
If  the  work  of  an  artist  is  to  be  measured  by  a  gauge, 
the  figures  of  which  represent  gold  coins,  Millet  does 
not  reach  the  altitude  of  600,000  francs,  unless  we 
estimate  at  least  thirty  of  his  contemporaries  .equally 
high.  In  technique,  Millet  follows  the  Dutch ;  a 
David  Teniers  without  humour  and  without  aim  at 
humour.  His  landscape,  never  the  essential  with 
him,  is  poorer  than  that  of  Rousseau  and  Frangois, 
not  to  speak  of  Corot.  His  greatness  lies  in  his 
personality,  in  his  simplicity,  in  his  avoidance  of 
pose,  in  the  pious  earnestness  with  which  he 
follows  the  daily  toil  of  the  field  labourer.  That 
is  no  new  note  in  art,  but  it  is  the  manifestation 
of  an  individuality.  Many  are  his  superiors  purely 

9' 


On  Art  and  Artists 

as  painters.  But  souls  cannot  be  compared  and 
measured  :  they  are  incommensurable. 

Courbet  follows  on  Millet.  Those  mad  on 
systematising  have  classed  the  two  together  as 
pioneers  of  Naturalism.  What  blindness  to  the 
essential!  If  anything  does  connect  them — accord- 
ing to  the  Hegelian  method  —  it  is  their  very 
antithesis.  Millet — let  us  think  of  the  "  Man  with 
the  Mattock,"  "The  Gleaners,"  even  "The  Pig- 
Killing,"  and  the  two  pictures  in  the  Century 
Exhibition  :  the  field-labourer,  who,  his  day's  work 
ended,  is  putting  on  his  coat,  and  the  mother  feeding 
her  little  child  with  pap,  as  well  as  "  The  Angelus  " — 
Millet  indicates,  in  heavy  painting  and  little-pleasing 
colours,  in  people  whose  coarse  externals  do  not 
attract  a  spirituality  that  ennobles  them  and  makes  us 
forget  their  soil-stained  smock-frocks  and  their  hard 
features.  Courbet,  on  the  other  hand,  draws  fault- 
lessly, and  is  master  of  every  knack  of  the  trade ; 
but,  with  his  rich  means,  he  never  gets  above  the 
spiritual  stage  of  photography,  and  he  knows  not  how 
to  open  to  us  the  smallest  corner  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  being  of  his  men  and  women. 

But,  strangely  enough,  this  same  Courbet,  who 
never  conceives  human  beings  except  as  soulless 
forms,  can  put  a  soul  into  nature  and  her  lower- 
conditioned  life.  His  justly  famed  "Sea -Waves" 
breathes  a  dramatic  will-power.  His  "  Roes  in  the 
Wood"  are  spirited.  Ancient,  mysterious  wisdom 

92 


A  Century  of  French  Art 

appears  to  possess  even  his  trees.  Animals  and 
plants,  sea  and  land,  speak  in  Courbet ;  man  alone 
is  dumb.  He  is  a  pantheist  who  excludes  only  man 
from  the  All-Divine.  That  is  pessimism  rooted  in 
the  most  profound  unconsciousness,  which  hints  at 
serious  organic  disturbance. 

Rosa  Bonheur,  represented  by  a  wonderful  "  Team 
of  Oxen  before  a  Hay  Waggon,"  is  in  this  respect 
akin  to  Courbet.  She,  too,  is  an  eloquent  advocate 
of  the  beauty  and  profound  feeling  of  the  brute ; 
but,  more  logical  than  Courbet,  she  confines  herself 
to  representing  animals,  and  does  not  meddle  with 
human  beings.  Man  fails  to  interest  her ;  she  takes 
no  heed  of  his  indifferent  appearance.  The  animal 
alone  attracts  her  attention.  A  Rudyard  Kipling 
of  the  brush,  she  has  painted  all  her  life  the 
"Jungle-Book,"  that  tells  of  the  wise  and  good  and 
honest  beasts,  and  the  cunning  men.  Sir  Edwin 
Landseer  was  also  an  animal-painter,  but  of  quite 
another  sort  than  Rosa  Bonheur.  When  Landseer 
wanted  to  flatter  the  beasts,  he  gave  them  human 
qualities.  Rosa  Bonheur  would  have  felt  she  was 
insulting  her  dear  animals,  if  she  had  painted  a 
picture  like  the  "Diogenes"  in  the  National  Gallery 
in  London.  The  humanising  of  animals  seems  to  her 
like  degrading  their  special  animal  beauty.  Her  love 
of  animals  was  morbid  ;  it  was,  however,  a  deep  and 
powerful  emotion  that  made  of  her  a  great  artist. 

Our  wandering  through  the  Century  Exhibition  led 
93 


On  Art  and  Artists 

us  finally  past  the  great  landscape-men,  the  founders 
of  modern  landscape-painting,  to  Manet  and  Monet, 
Renoir  and  Degas,  with  whom  a  new  century  of 
art  begins.  In  a  later  section  on  the  Caillebotte 
room  in  the  Luxembourg  Museum,  I  shall  study 
closely  the  authors  of  the  Open  Air  Movement. 
The  fight  against  the  children  of  classicism  and 
romance  was  furious,  and  "  free-light "  was  victorious 
in  the  degree  in  which  it  deserved  victory.  But 
even  in  those  days  of  turmoil  there  were  idyllists 
who  remained  undisturbed  by  the  tumult,  and  did 
not  notice  it.  Gustave  Moreau  painted  his  colour 
stones  from  a  palette  of  gold  and  precious  stones, 
from  a  palette  of  Limosin  and  the  glass-painters  of 
Gothic  cathedrals,  as  if  there  had  never  existed  an 
"Olympia"  of  Manet  or  a  "Funeral  Procession  of 
Ornans,"  of  Courbet.  The  high  importance  of 
Moreau,  to  whom  I  return  in  a  special  study,  lies 
in  the  fact  that  he  teaches  us  the  feebleness  of 
all  classification  of  art  development  into  epochs. 
True  artists  are  not  subject  to  time,  and  move 
side  by  side  without  influencing  reciprocally  their 
orbits.  They  are  not  subject  to  Newton's  law  of 
gravitation. 

The  Century  Exhibition  taught  us  something 
more.  It  sharpened  our  sight  for  distinguishing 
between  the  literary  painters  and  the  painters 
proper.  The  former,  as  a  rule,  find  fame  quicker 
than  the  latter,  but  their  fame  affects  posterity  as 

94 


A  Century  of  French  Art 

a  bad  jest.  They  are  illustrators  of  the  time,  and 
what  it  brings,  that  is  the  worthless,  art-destroying 
"actuality."  Every  attempt  to  put  painting  at  the 
service  of  contemporary  thought,  to  demand  of  it 
philosophical  collaboration  in  the  development  of 
political,  moral,  and  social  doctrines,  is  a  sin 
against  an  art  whose  essence  directs  it  to  the 
eternal  aspects  of  the  phenomenal  world.  Only 
those  are  genuine  painter  temperaments  which 
can  follow  reflectively  the  play  of  light  on  surfaces 
in  motion,  and  tell  us  what  feelings  this  play 
awakens  in  them.  All  symbolism,  all  allegory, 
all  graphic  accompaniment  of  poetry,  is  weak. 
Only  what  has  been  really  seen  has  permanence, 
even  if  it  is  reproduced  with  little  skill.  You 
cannot  paint  from  hearsay,  only  from  the  impres- 
sions which  the  eye  takes  in,  and  the  soul  delivers. 
It  is  astonishing  that  so  primitive  a  biological  truth 
should  be  so  difficult  to  grasp. 


95 


VI 
THE   SCHOOL   OF    1830 

THOMY  THIERY  was  a  rich  man  of  the  formerly 
French,  but  afterwards  English,  island  of  Mauritius, 
who  lived  and  died  in  Paris,  and  left  his  art  collec- 
tion, consisting  of  paintings,  Barye  bronzes,  and  some 
Gobelins,  to  the  Louvre.  Thorny  Thie"ry  was  a  man 
of  a  single  passion  and  a  single  thought ;  he  loved 
only  the  Barbizon  School  and  some  of  its  artistic 
contemporaries  who,  in  his  opinion,  stood  in  an 
elective  affinity  to  it ;  but  he  loved  them  with  un- 
shaken fidelity  and  constant  self-sacrifice.  And  in 
contrast  to  other  more  eclectic  amateurs,  he  did  not 
perform  his  heroic  deeds  of  an  undaunted  purchaser 
in  auction  rooms  and  art -shops,  but  carried  his 
money  to  the  studios  of  the  living  and  struggling 
as  long  as  he  was  able,  and  appeared  on  the  market 
as  an  ordinary  collector  only  when  the  brush  had 
slipped  from  the  hand  of  the  creators.  In  this  way 
his  gallery  got  the  warmth  and  unity  of  an  organic 
being,  and  besides  its  beauty,  gave  joy  through  the 

96 


The  School  of  1830 

idea  that  it  was  not  the  result  of  parvenu  vanity,  or  of 
that  cruel  fancy  that  takes  satisfaction  in  a  work  with- 
out troubling  about  the  originator,  but  that  a  grateful 
patronage,  which  not  only  wishes  to  purchase  art 
treasures,  but  also  to  lighten  and  beautify  the  artist's 
earthly  pilgrimage,  had  created  it.  As  a  legacy  to 
the  Louvre,  the  collection  has  from  a  fraction  become 
an  integral  section  that  methodically  dovetails  into 
its  place  in  the  frame  of  this  incomparable  museum, 
in  which  the  history  of  art  is  made  to  live  before 
our  gaze  in  select  examples.  The  management  has 
added  the  pictures  which  it  formerly  possessed  of 
Thorny  Thiery's  favourites,  so  that  the  three  halls 
of  the  collection  now  afford  a  good  survey  of  the 
fruitful  movement,  which,  about  1830,  took  place  in 
French  painting,  and  diverted  it  from  the  degraded 
classicism  then  dominant  into  the  path  pursued  at 
present. 

The  School  of  Barbizon !  A  convenient,  but, 
for  that  very  reason,  a  meaningless,  expression.  The 
men  comprised  in  this  commonplace  designation 
have  not  much  in  common.  In  age  not  far  apart, 
they  were  bound  to  each  other  by  personal  friend- 
ship, and  partly  inhabitants  of  that  Fontainebleau 
wood,  in  which  some  of  them  experienced  Nature's 
revelation.  They  were,  however,  very  different  in 
temperament,  genius,  and  impulse,  and  they  strove 
for  personal  ideals  with  dissimilar  modes  of  expres- 
sion. Only  one  peculiarity  belongs  in  like  degree 

97  G 


On  Art  and  Artists 

to  all,  viz.,  the  burning  longing  with  which  they 
yearned  to  get  out  of  the  stupid  hole-in-the-wall 
of  the  academic  studio  that  had  become  to  them 
a  goal  into  freedom  and  life. 

Without  punning,  the  free  air  and  freedom  meant 
to  them  the  same  thing.  Landscape  furnished  them 
with  the  means  of  renewing  their  acquaintance  with 
Nature.  Under  a  completely  Faust -like  impulse, 
they  struggled  out  of  the  atelier,  where,  "  in  reek  and 
decay,  only  the  skeletons  of  brutes  and  dead  men's 
bones"  surrounded  them,  "into  the  far  country." 
Their  appearance  about  the  time  of  the  July  Revolu- 
tion was  the  Easter-morning  walk  after  brooding 
in  the  Gothic  studio. 

The  David  tradition  held  painting  in  thrall.  The 
master's  greatest  pupil,  Baron  Gros,  and,  with  him, 
the  gifted  Gericault,  sought  to  overcome  the  stiff 
mummifiedness  and  dryness  of  forms,  the  staginess 
of  subject  of  this  art,  which  found  its  triumph 
in  the  "  Rape  of  the  Sabine  Women "  and  the 
"  Coronation  at  Notre  Dame."  But  Gericault,  mis- 
judged and  undervalued,  died  early  a  conquered 
man,  and  Gros,  going  astray  in  uncertain  sounding 
of  himself,  returned,  after  his  short  revolt,  to  the  tin 
and  paste  formulary  of  his  first  epoch,  recognised  in 
alarm  its  hollowness,  and,  by  voluntary  death  in 
the  Seine,  got  rid  of  the  pains  of  the  sceptic  who 
has  lost  his  faith  and  his  ideal.  The  then  young 
generation,  warned  and  shaken  by  the  tragedy  of  this 

98 


The  School  of  1830 

seeker  who  found  nothing,  broke  with  the  dominant 
rule,  and  sat  down  at  the  feet  of  Nature,  to  learn 
from  her. 

The  country  is  the  great  master-workshop.  There 
Nature  speaks  her  most  eloquent  language  of  form. 
There  she"  finds  the  tones  that  awaken  the  loudest 
echo  in  the  soul  of  the  genuine  born  painter.  The 
creation  of  a  pictorial  artist  is,  like  each  of  the 
higher  mental  activities,  very  complicated;  the  most 
opposed  organs  of  the  brain  have  a  variously  graded 
and  mixed  share  in  it.  The  vivid  reception  and 
rendition  of  a  phenomenon  at  rest,  of  the  expressive 
line  of  one  in  motion,  is  an  exercise  of  the  motor 
centres.  In  the  representation  of  man,  or  what 
pertains  to  man,  which  is,  directly  or  indirectly, 
through  the  awakening  of  anthropomorphic  ideas, 
to  seize  on  our  minds,  trains  of  thought,  reason,  and 
judgment  play  a  part  by  the  side  of  the  emotions 
growing  out  of  the  unconscious.  But  the  real  and 
essential  element  in  painting  is  neither  the  motorial 
production  of  the  drawing,  nor  the  travail  of  thought 
in  the  composition,  but  is  ever  the  giving  of  light 
and  colour.  Now  what  counts  in  landscape  is  the 
effect  of  light  and  colour.  Here  the  painter  stands 
before  the  magic  changes  of  lights  and  the  alluring 
colour-mysteries  of  Nature,  which  excite  him  most 
keenly ;  for  they  stimulate  his  optical  centre,  of 
which  the  extraordinary  development  and  particular 
susceptibility  of  light  is  the  psycho-physical  basis 

99 


On  Art  and  Artists 

and  preliminary  condition  of  the  primitive,  impulsive 
gift  of  painting.  Ever  when  men  of  talent  feel  the 
stiffened  traditions  of  the  schools  to  be  intolerable, 
and  want  to  follow  their  own  inward  impulse,  they 
flee  to  the  country  in  order,  in  its  free  light,  to  wash 
themselves  clean  from  the  dust  of  the  schools,  and 
bathe  into  health  their  limbs,  aching  from  constrained 
positions.  There  is  profound  instruction  in  the  fact 
that  to  Giotto,  in  his  effort  completely  to  burst  the 
fetters  of  Byzantinism,  which  his  master,  Cimabue, 
had  already  strongly  shaken,  it  first  occurred  to 
introduce  into  his  work  the  elements  of  landscape. 
His  picture  in  the  Louvre  of  St  Francis  of  Assisi 
is  a  touchingly  naive  example  of  this. 

It  was  Corot  who  first  uttered  in  the  French 
painting  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  creative 
words,  "  Let  there  be  light."  Of  course,  he  did  not 
discover  day,  for  there  were  masters  before  him  in 
whose  pictures  the  sun  shone.  We  find  in  Ruysdael 
the  keen,  chilly  clearness  of  a  northern  sky.  Claude 
Lorrain  gives  warm,  tender  evening  tones  of  the 
south,  which  have  the  effect  of  luxurious  warm  baths. 
From  him,  Turner  directly  traces  his  descent,  who 
overheats  Claude's  pleasant  tepidity  to  a  glow,  and 
raises  his  gentle  clearness  to  a  blinding  splendour  of 
radiancy.  But  no  one  before  Corot  has  understood, 
like  him,  how  to  fill  pictures  with  such  discreet 
yet  penetrating,  delicate  yet  glowing  light.  It  is 
no  melodramatic,  no  Bengal  or  concocted  light,  no 

100 


The  School  of  1830 

light  of  strange,  exceptional  occasions,  of  confusing 
colours,  no  vulgar,  pompous,  excessively  brilliant 
light,  but  a  restfully  even,  inexhaustibly  rich, 
cheerful  light  that  fills  the  soul  with  joy  and  hope. 
Corot's  light  sheds  its  rays  from  a  hopeful  soul.  It 
is  luminous  optimism  in,  visible  form.  Some  years 
ago,  a  Corot  Exhibition  took  place  in  the  Galliera 
Museum,  and  those  who  arranged  it  contrived  to 
collect  about  the  whole  of  the  master's  life-work.  I 
looked  attentively  at  one  point:  it  contained  hardly 
a  single  evening,  not  a  single  autumn  note  or 
muttering  of  a  storm,  but  only  morning  and  spring 
and  blue  sky.  That  is  characteristic  of  this  child 
of  the  sun.  In  Corot  the  elements  of  beauty  are 
nearly  always  the  same :  pleasant  hill-countries, 
winding  paths  that  lead  to  weird  distances  and 
invite  our  yearning  to  fare  thither ;  at  a  curve  of 
the  road  gleaming  water  mirroring  silver  cloudlets ; 
in  the  foreground  delicately-leaved  trees ;  around 
and  over  everything  the  wondrous  air  thrilling  with 
light,  animated  with  a  thin  haze  of  mist,  in  which, 
bewitched  by  the  feeling  of  spring,  by  an  association 
of  ideas,  we  fancy  we  can  hear  the  soft  bell-notes 
of  invisible  church  towers,  the  twitter  of  pairing 
birds  engaged  in  building  their  nests,  and  the  buzz 
of  early  beetles.  Some  of  the  Corots  in  the  Thi6ry 
rooms,  e.g.,  the  view  of  the  Coliseum,  are  youthful 
productions,  and  do  not  yet  show  the  dreamily 
soft,  as  it  were,  inspired  style  and  silver  glow  of  his 

101 


On  Art  and  Artists 

maturity.  They  are  still  somewhat  dry  and  hard, 
yet,  even  in  these  more  prosaic  pictures,  the  heart- 
quickening  light  falls  from  heaven — Corot's  incom- 
parable strength. 

Corot  did  not  belong  to  the  forestmen  of  Barbizon, 
but  he  was  the  founder  of  their  religion  of  light. 
Th.  Rousseau  shares  with  him  the  silkiness,  and 
approaches  him  in  the  down-like  delicacy  of  his 
young  foliage.  Daubigny  has  more  temperament ; 
he  is  sturdier,  more  manly,  perhaps  I  should  say : 
more  like  a  peasant.  What  raises  him  to  the  rank 
of  master  is  the  depth  of  his  pictures,  and  his  gift 
of  working  out  his  subjects  in  almost  stereoscopic 
relief,  in  all  planes — in  the  fore-,  middle-,  and  back- 
ground. His  "  Skiff"  is,  therefore,  an  excellent 
example.  The  mast  of  the  vessel  stands  absolutely 
free.  We  see  how  air  is  encompassing  it  on  all 
sides.  Dupre  shares  in  equal  degree  the  praise  of  his 
two  friends.  That  is  not  quite  just,  for  he  has  by  no 
means  so  much  personality  as  they.  He  does  not  feel 
originally,  but  imitatively.  Nature  moves  him  first 
through  the  eyes  of  his  companions  in  art.  He 
imitates  alternately  the  softness  of  Corot's  foliage 
and  his  silvery  mistiness,  Rousseau's  smoothness 
and  insinuating  harmony  of  colour,  and  Daubigny's 
tree-poetry,  but  I  look  in  vain  for  the  feature  that 
distinguishes  him  from  the  others. 

The  delicate,  and  at  the  same  time  reverential  love 
with  which   the  Barbizon-men   treat   the   individual 

102 


The  School  of  1830 

tree,  Troyon  expends  on  domestic  animals.  As  to 
the  former  the  tree,  so  long  as  it  does  not  melt  in 
the  haze  of  distance,  is  never  merely  part  of  the 
scheme,  but  a  distinct,  living  being,  possessing  a 
physiognomy  of  its  own,  of  which  they  render  a 
strongly  individualised  likeness  ;  so  the  latter  regards 
animals  with  the  understanding  of  a  shepherd,  who 
is  known  to  recognise  by  their  countenances  all 
the  sheep  of  a  numerous  flock.  He  will  correctly 
depict  the  physiognomy  of  animals,  without  any 
propensity  to  giving  them  the  look  of  human 
beings,  through  which  animal  painters  only  too 
easily  become,  without  intending  it,  comic. 

Millet  is  the  continuation  and  consummation  of 
the  great  landscape  painters  of  1830.  We  are  not 
conscious  of  this  if  we  regard  him  only  by  him- 
self; but  it  is  at  once  forced  on  us  if  we  see  him 
in  the  Thiery  Collection  in  connection  with  his 
comrades.  Millet  is  also,  fundamentally,  a  land- 
scape painter,  only  his  landscapes  are  animated  by 
men ;  but  not  by  men  who  are  accessories,  as  is 
the  case  with  Corot,  but  by  men  who  are  a  part  of 
the  landscape,  its  most  important  and  essential  part, 
precisely  as  the  trees  and  clouds  are,  but  more 
dignified  and  spiritual  than  trees  or  clouds.  With 
him  man  grows  together  with  his  rural  environ- 
ment, is  himself  a  bit  of  nature  in  the  midst  of 
nature,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  decide  whether  he  is 
degrading  man,  or  is  elevating  the  earth  with  all 

103 


On  Art  and  Artists 

that  on  it  creeps  and  flies,  when  he  puts  them  on 
the  same  level.  Millet  discerns  in  nature  an  all- 
living  element  that  can  take  manifold  bodily  forms 
and  be  expressed  in  a  variety  of  ways,  but  is  one 
and  the  same  in  all  different  forms.  This  grand 
pantheistic  feature  uplifts  his  pictures  from  genre 
to  high,  spiritual  art.  And  since  nature  is  never 
comic,  so  Millet's  peasants  —  themselves  a  bit  of 
nature  —  never  affect  us  comically,  but  always 
pathetically,  even  when  they  are  as  sturdy,  clumsy, 
and  simple  as  David  Teniers's  boors.  In  one  picture 
in  the  collection,  "  Maternal  Foresight,"  Millet  has 
apparently  a  humorous  intention  :  a  peasant  woman 
is  assisting  her  very  small  youngster  at  the  door- 
step of  her  house  in  a  little  necessity.  Even  here 
I  cannot  find  anything  to  laugh  at,  unless  from 
kindly  sympathy  for  the  hop-o'-my-thumb  and  his 
tender  mother.  It  is  just  a  glance  at  life,  and  at 
such  no  one  who  feels  a  reverence  for  the  sanctity 
of  life  ever  laughs. 

The  devotees  of  the  great  Pan — Corot,  Rousseau, 
Daubigny,  Millet,  and  their  followers  of  the  second 
rank,  gain  in  significance  side  by  side.  Their 
contemporary,  Delacroix,  loses  beside  them.  What 
I  felt  at  the  Century  Exhibition  of  French  art,  I 
feel  even  more  strongly  in  the  Thiery  rooms  at 
the  Louvre.  I  am  afraid  Delacroix  is  one  whose 
trial  must  be  revised.  Perhaps  we  shall  then  be 
obliged  to  confirm  the  unfavourable  verdict  that  the 

104 


The  School  of  1830 

adherents  of  the  Classical  movement  passed  on 
him  at  his  appearance,  although  on  quite  different 
grounds. 

Delacroix  was  not  in  love  with  life ;  he  did  not 
seek  and  find  nature ;  he  followed  in  her  footsteps 
only  in  books.  He  was  essentially  an  illustrator ; 
apart  from  Victor  Hugo  he  is  not  to  be  thought 
of.  The  Romantics  performed  a  duty  of  gratitude 
when,  with  fanatical  violence,  they  carried  him 
triumphantly  through  his  detractors.  He  is  their 
henchman  with  the  brush ;  he  fights  with  them  and 
for  them.  They  only  act  according  to  the  rules  of 
chivalry  when  they  protect  him.  His  magic  colouring 
is  not  to  be  contested,  although  it  is  often  gaudy 
and  theatrical.  But  out  of  his  "  Hamlet  with  the 
Gravediggers,"  his  "  Medea,"  his  "  Bride  of  Abydos," 
his  "Abduction  of  Rebecca"  ("  Ivanhoe"),  a  dreary 
waste  stares  us  in  the  face,  which  would  be  hardly 
bearable  if  we  did  not  happen  to  know  the  poems 
from  which  Delacroix  drew  his  subjects.  We  must 
put  life  into  his  dead  pictures  by  what  we  remember 
of  our  reading.  Delacroix  stops  at  the  externals. 
We  have  to  add  soul  and  passion. 

After  the  men  of  1830  came,  on  the  one  side, 
the  neat  painters  of  the  Empire,  of  whom  Meissonier 
is  the  best  type ;  on  the  other,  the  naturalists  with 
Courbet,  the  impressionists  with  Manet  and  Monet ; 
and  so  the  development  went  on  to  the  confused 
struggles  of  this  moment.  That  period  of  the  July 

105 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Revolution  was  felt  by  its  contemporaries  as  an 
age  of  storm  and  stress  in  art.  On  us  later-born 
children  it  has  the  effect  of  halcyon  days,  the 
full,  rapturous  life  and  sunny  joys  of  which  the 
present  generation  longs  for  in  vain. 


106 


THE  REALISTS 

IN  the  last  years  of  the  Empire  and  the  first  of 
the  Republic,  great  things  occurred  on  the  sacred 
hill  of  Montmartre,  on  the  summit  of  which  the 
Church  of  the  Sacred  Heart  had  not  yet  supplanted 
the  Muses  and  Graces.  A  group  of  painters,  diminish- 
ing in  number,  yet  brave  as  lions,  and  pugnacious, 
arose  in  defence  and  attack  against  the  official  art 
of  the  Academic,  the  £cole  des  Beaux  Arts,  and  the 
Salon,  which  was  still  an  institution  of  the  State. 
Their  palette  was  a  battle  -  shield,  their  brush  a 
lethal  weapon  for  cutting  and  thrusting,  their  easel 
a  barricade.  Uproar  was  what  they  painted,  and 
plunder  and  carnage  were  the  subjects  of  their  con- 
versation in  endless  beer  and  tobacco  sessions.  They 
wanted  to  massacre  the  old  idols  in  oil-painting, 
and  the  tyrants  of  the  plastic  arts  now  become 
twaddlers.  No  more  painting  by  tinker,  plumber, 

107 


On  Art  and  Artists 

or  chimney-sweep !  No  soot  in  place  of  air !  No 
Dutch  dolls  in  tin  armour,  with  volunteer  firemen's 
brass  helmets  on  their  gingerbread  heads !  On  the 
contrary,  an  honest  rendering  of  phenomena  of  light 
and  colour  from  actual  observation,  sincerity,  open 
air,  and  impression. 

The  first  to  gather  with  fury  and  wild  gesticulation 
around  the  daring  preachers  of  the  new  gospel  were 
literary  men  and  journalists.  They  did  not  under- 
stand anything  about  painting,  and  would  not  have 
been  capable  of  distinguishing  a  varnished  oleograph 
for  a  cab-drivers'  public  house  from  a  real  Leonardo  ; 
whether  a  picture  was  blackened  or  saturated  by 
sunlight,  whether  a  human  figure  was  clumsily  con- 
ventional or  felt  and  understood  with  truth  *:o  nature, 
that  was  to  them  quite  as  indifferent  as  the  colour  of 
the  Empress  of  China's  dressing-gown.  They  had, 
however,  the  feeling  that  this  movement  in  art  was, 
in  some  way  or  other,  connected  with  thought  of 
general  subversion,  and  attacked  the  government. 
They  thought  they  heard  the  naked  women  in 
Eduard  Manet's  "Down  with  Napoleon"  shriek.  The 
gleaming,  noonday  lights  of  Claude  Monet  seemed 
to  them  a  cry  for  vengeance  for  the  coup  d'etat. 
They  understood  Pissarro's  landscapes  as  illustrating 
Victor  Hugo's  Chdtiments^  and  Renoir's  dancing 
grisettes  clearly  pronounced  a  crushing  verdict  on 
the  Mexican  Expedition.  All  the  enemies  of  the 
Empire  regarded  open  air  as  an  item  of  their 

108 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— The  Realists 

political  programme.  To  be  a  true  republican  one 
must  swear  allegiance  to  realism.  Thus  Gambetta 
and  Zola  became  fanatics  of  the  new  movement,  not 
on  aesthetic  principles — such  did  not  exist  for  either 
— but  from  a  tendency  to  opposition. 

We  should  be  wrong  to  laugh  at  a  Radical 
mob  orator  and  an  anarchist  novelist  being  fervent 
advocates  of  a  school  of  painting  from  party  interests. 
It  arises  out  of  a  quite  correct  feeling.  "All  is  in 
all."  A  close  relationship  unites  all  the  phenomena 
of  one  time,  and  the  most  opposed  forms  may 
express  a  single  fundamental  mood.  About  1868 
realism  meant  quite  as  much  a  revolt  against  a  bit 
of  authority  as  republicanism  did.  Were  not  a 
luxuriant  beard  and  a  soft  hat  in  1848  proof 
positive  of  revolutionary  sentiments  ?  And  about 
1895  were  not  a  tail-coat  and  a  flowing  neck-tie 
the  acknowledgment  of  belief  in  blank  verse  and 
Maeterlinck  ? 

From  the  first  moment,  then,  realism  had  the 
honours  of  the  opposition  press  and  the  support  of 
those  politicians,  the  majority  of  whom,  later  on,  were 
to  play  the  principal  parts  in  the  revolt  of  the 
Commune.  The  artists,  to  be  sure,  despised  it  at 
first,  as  long  as  it  gained  no  Salon  distinctions  and 
had  no  market.  For  a  long  time — for  some  decades 
—  it  had  none.  The  public  regarded  the  works 
of  the  new  movement  only  as  expressions  of  un- 
conscious or  intentional  artistic  humour,.  It  laughed 

109 


On  Art  and  Artists 

at  them  as  it  did  at  the  saucy  caricatures  in  the 
comic  papers.  There  was  perhaps  only  one 
individual  who,  a  generation  ago,  took  the  Manets 
and  Monets,  the  Renoirs  and  Pissarros  seriously, 
and  was  prepared  to  manifest  his  belief  in  them 
by  ready  money — the  only  genuine  martyrdom  in 
our  days — and  this  seer,  prophet,  and  confessor  was 
Caillebotte.  He  bought  their  pictures ;  not  at  a 
big  price,  it  is  true,  for  we  must  not  expect  the 
superhuman  from  mere  mortals,  but  he  bought 
them ;  he  poured  out  his  red  gold  for  them,  and 
this  sacrifice  probably  preserved  the  life  of  realism, 
or,  at  any  rate,  of  its  teachers. 

Caillebotte  himself  painted,  but  only  for  himself, 
and  that  was  praiseworthy;  but  what  was  more 
important,  he  had  acquired  a  handsome  fortune  by 
commerce,  and  spent  the  major  portion  of  his 
fine  income  on  open-air  pictures.  He  did  not 
exhaust  his  enthusiasm  by  that.  When  he  died,  he 
bequeathed  the  most  striking  pieces — "  the  pearls," 
he  called  them — of  his  collection  to  the  French 
State,  on  the  condition  that  it  left  them  together 
and  accommodated  them  with  a  room  in  a  Paris 
museum. 

The  Department  of  Fine  Arts  at  first  made 
difficulties ;  but  finally,  it  resolved  to  accept  the 
bequest.  The  Luxembourg  Museum  was  enlarged 
by  an  additional  building,  and  a  small  room  in  the 
new  wing  now  accommodates  the  pictures  left  by 

no 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— The  Realists 

Caillebotte,   amongst    which    he   also    smuggled    in 
two  from  his  own  brush.     Thus  the  Revolutionaries 
attained    the    honours    of  a   State   museum.      This 
triumph   crowns   an    adventurous    campaign    which, 
after  apparently  fatal  defeats  at  first,  led  from  victory 
to  victory,  and  from  conquest  to   conquest.     For  a 
decade  and  a  half  the  art  of  the  Manets  and  Monets 
has  dominated  painting.     Only  in  the  works  of  a  few 
obstinate  old  fogies  is  their  spirit  untraceable,  at  any 
rate  on  the  Continent ;  for  in  England,  to  be  sure, 
they   have   not   succeeded   in   gaining  the   slightest 
influence  on  the  Prae-Raphaelite  movement.     On  the 
other  hand,  in  countries  without  old  and  uninterrupted 
art  traditions  of  their  own,  for  which  the  history  of 
painting  begins  at  the  moment  in  which  they  them- 
selves first  co-operate  actively  in  it,  therefore  especi- 
ally  in  North  America   and   Scandinavia,   there   is, 
as    a    rule,   no   other   art.     When    the    painters    in 
these   countries  awoke   to  art,  that  was  the  newest 
thing,  le  dernier  cri  of  realism,  and  they  took  to  this 
latest  fashion,  just  as,  in  new  colonies,  negro  ladies, 
who  yesterday  knew  no   other  aid   to   their   dusky 
loveliness  than  an  apron  of  plaited  grass  and  a  few 
glass  beads,  insist  that  their  toilet,  or,  at  any  rate, 
portions  of  it,  shall  be  quite  up  to  date. 

But  the  victory  in  lands  barbaric  so  far  as  art  is 
concerned,  and  the  apotheosis  in  the  Luxembourg 
Museum,  do  not  spell  the  end  of  the  battle  or 
the  conclusion  of  peace.  Realism  had  even  recently 

in 


On  Art  and  Artists 

to  fight  hard  battles  of  persecution.  Whilst  the 
crowd  pressed  into  the  Caillebotte  room,  which  was 
opened  in  1897,  and,  it  must  be  admitted,  gave 
expression  to  very  mixed  feelings,  certain  masters 
of  the  Art  School,  the  narrow  Academician,  Gerome, 
at  their  head,  sent  to  the  Minister  concerned  a 
fiercely  angry  warning  against  the  desecration  of 
the  Museum's  hallowed  rooms  by  the  admission  of 
rubbish  which  they  characterised  as  "scandalous 
daubs,"  the  "offspring  of  utter  incompetency  or 
lunacy." 

The  warning  was  wrongly  timed.  In  1897  it  came 
too  early,  or  too  late.  Too  late,  because  Manet  and 
Monet  have  apparently  held  their  own  against 
Ge"r6me  and  Gustave  Moreau,  and  protests  are  futile 
against  facts,  or  what  are  regarded  as  such  at  a  given ' 
period.  Too  early,  for  people  then  still  stood — and 
probably  they  stand  now — at  an  insufficient  distance 
from  the  movement  now  called  impressionist  to 
regard  it  from  the  perspective  of  history,  and  to 
assign  it  its  proper  place  in  the  development  of 
painting.  That  moment  will  come,  most  likely  very 
soon.  Then  the  protest  of  the  Academicians  will  be 
superfluous,  for  even  the  aesthetic  boors  will  repeat 
the  verdict,  then  become  a  commonplace,  that  realism 
had  its  justification ;  that,  besides  transient  harm, 
it  was  the  author  of  permanent  utility ;  and  that, 
after  a  half-miraculous  progress  not  uncommon  in 
the  history  of  art,  the  new  men,  who  themselves 

112 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— The  Realists 

could  do  little  or  nothing  at  all,  taught  more 
competent  successors  something  precious. 

The  Caillebotte  room  will  help  to  bring  about 
a  correct  estimate  of  the  revolutionists  of  "the 
'sixties."  Gerome  ought  to  have  rejoiced  at  the 
opening  of  that  room,  for  it  really,  for  the  first  time, 
sets  a  legend  in  the  light  of  history.  For  twenty 
years  everybody  has  thought  he  had  a  right  to 
chatter  about  realism,  though  few  have  really  seen 
the  documentary  monuments  of  it,  because  up  to  now 
they  were  never  conveniently  accessible  as  a  whole. 
The  prototypical  works  of  the  Naturalist  School 
were  mostly  shown  cursorily  in  rare  and  little  noticed 
exhibitions.  Then  they  hung  in  their  authors'  studios, 
or  in  some  private  collections.  He  who  had  not 
lived  in  Paris  for  thirty  years,  and  observed  with 
close  attention  all  the  details  of  the  art  movement, 
or  did  not  undertake  troublesome  journeys  of  ex- 
ploration and  discovery,  could  speak  of  them  only 
from  untrustworthy  imitations,  or  from  absolutely 
worthless  hearsay.  Now,  at  last,  the  material  can  be 
seen  by  all.  Whoever  is  capable  of  receiving  his  own 
impressions  can  procure  them. 

Extravagant  enthusiasm  for  the  pioneers  of  the 
"  Open  Air "  movement  will  now  be  quite  as  little 
excusable  as  its  condemnation  without  mitigating 
circumstances.  The  former  will,  in  face  of  the 
Caillebotte  room,  be  recognised  at  the  first  glance 
as  sheer  weak-mindedness,  the  latter  as  lack  of  under- 

113  H 


On  Art  and  Artists 

standing.  That  is  the  great  service  of  this  room  in 
the  Museum :  it  adduces  all  that  can  be  said  on 
behalf  of  realism,  and  shows  at  the  same  time, 
inexorably,  its  limitations. 

I  should  like  beforehand  to  exclude  Raffaelli  from 
the  painters  that  appear  in  this  collection.  He  is 
not  a  labourer  from  the  first  hour.  Even  later  on, 
when  he  joined  the  movement,  he  was  no  orthodox 
believer.  People,  from  their  superficial  knowledge, 
jumbled  him  up  with  the  realists,  because  he  was 
at  first  always,  as  the  latter  were  often,  a  pessimistic 
•confessor  of  the  truth.  His  peculiar  temperament 
decided  his  choice  of  sad  subjects.  In  his  outlook 
on  life  he  was  wont  to  dwell,  with  self-torturing 
choice,  on  depressing  sights :  on  the  sick  in  lazar- 
houses ;  on  the  homeless  tramps  in  the  moats  about 
the  Paris  forts;  on  poor,  human  wrecks  that  float 
through  the  street-current  of  the  great  city.  He 
told  the  story  of  these  men  with  heart  -  breaking 
accuracy.  He  depicted  them  in  mean,  miserable, 
mud-tints ;  in  the  dust-grey  of  unswept,  suburban 
streets ;  the  sickly  lime-white  and  dung-brown  of 
neglected  house-walls  ;  the  washed-out  greenish-blue 
of  worn  -  out  cotton  blouses.  In  this  mood  was 
painted  his  "  Convalescents  in  the  Hospital  Yard," 
with  its  livid  faces  beneath  the  white  skull  -  caps, 
and  emaciated  bodies  in  blue  dressing-gowns,  on 
the  dank,  moss-covered  stone  benches,  in  front  of 
the  sullen  lazar- house.  This  picture,  like  all  of 

114 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— The  Realists 

Raffaelli's,  makes  up  for  the  unpleasantness  of  its 
story  by  the  severe  honesty  of  its  drawing ;  and 
in  the  street  picture,  "  Behind  Notre  Dame,"  the 
astonishingly  effective  employment  of  the  gay  red 
kerchief  of  a  workwoman  in  the  foreground,  amidst 
the  subdued  tones  of  a  murky  Paris  day  in  uncertain 
weather,  shows  what  a  clever  and  faithful  colourist 
this  painter  is,  who  so  long  painted  obstinately  from 
a  degraded  palette.  Nowadays,  he  has,  in  the  main, 
overcome  his  depression  of  spirits,  and  in  his  soul  a 
bright  sunshine  laughs,  the  rays  of  which  are  dis- 
cernible in  all  his  later  works. 

The  real  originator  of  the  new  tendency  was 
Eduard  Manet.  Of  his  three  pictures  in  the  Caille- 
botte  room,  one,  the  "  Olympia,"  is  a  masterpiece. 
It  had  already  long  been  the  property  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg collection,  and  amongst  the  academic  works 
of  that  Museum  it  seemed  so  strange  that  it  forced 
expressions  of  repugnance  from  most  visitors.  After 
this  comes  an  insipid  brown  lady  in  a  mantilla,  and 
the  important  "  Balcony."  "  Olympia "  is  a  faded, 
decayed  lady  of  the  class  which  people  in  Paris 
are  accustomed  to  describe  as  "  the  old  guard."  The 
person,  whose  hair  is  dressed  for  a  soiree,  but  who 
is  entirely  without  clothing,  lies  outstretched  on  a 
bed,  displaying  her  charms,  which  might  convert 
Don  Juan  himself  to  the  monastic  rule  of  chastity.  By 
the  couch  stands  a  pretty  negress,  busied  with  her 
mistress.  The  "  Balcony "  shows  two  ladies  with  a 

"5 


On  Art  and  Artists 

gentleman  friend,  and  a  man-servant  in  the  back- 
ground. The  two  pictures  display  Manet's  purpose 
and  method.  There  is  nothing  of  impressionism 
and  open  air  to  be  remarked  in  the  "  Olympia." 
The  scene  is  a  closed  room  filled  with  diffused  rays 
of  chamber-light.  The  figures  of  the  two  women 
are  accurately  painted,  indeed  in  a  painfully  and 
curiously  dry  style.  In  vain  would  one  look  for  the 
smartness  and  bold  dashing  on  of  colour  that  are 
now  held  to  be  the  characteristics  of  impressionism. 
It  is  all  painfully  and  laboriously  measured,  without 
swing  or  freedom,  without  mastery  over  the  model 
or  the  tone.  The  picture  is  revolutionary  only  in  its 
straightforwardness.  When  it  appeared,  the  academic 
masters  painted  prettily.  When  they  had  to  repre- 
sent nudity,  they  painted  a  sort  of  conventional 
rose-coloured  jelly,  without  bones  or  physiognomy, 
smooth,  ordinary,  and  superficially  pleasing  as  a  china 
doll,  inartistic,  and  unspeakably  tedious.  In  his 
"Olympia,"  Manet  rebelled  against  this  prettiness 
in  painting  that  so  falsifies  nature.  He  chose  the 
most  repulsive  model  he  could  find,  and  reproduced 
it  with  literal  exactness  in  all  its  repulsive  truth. 
He  showed  that  there  is  female  flesh  not  altogether 
too  old  that  is  not  composed  of  snow  and  rose 
leaves.  He  taught  his  truth  brutally  and  unwisely, 
with  churlish  violation  of  good  taste  and  gallantry, 
but  with  ardour  and  conviction.  The  "  Balcony " 
already  announces  the  joyous  tidings  of  open  air. 

116 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— The  Realists 

The  two  women  are  bathed  in  full  daylight,  which 
cruelly  misuses  their  faces.  Here,  too,  Manet  wears 
the  blinkers  that  narrow  his  artistic  horizon.  He 
wishes  to  oppose  sunny  brightness  to  the  brown 
broth  which  was  given  out  in  the  masters'  studios  as 
the  only  colour  whereby  one  could  find  salvation. 
He  therefore  lavishes  his  light,  which  overcomes  and 
disperses  the  darkness  ;  but  he  forgets  that  sunshine 
influences  local  colours ;  that  it  gives  them  various 
effects,  according  to  their  illuminative  power  ;  that  it 
envelops  and  blends  them,  however  opposite  they 
may  be,  in  one  single  underlying  harmony  of  silver 
or  gold  tone,  and  with  no  more  misgiving  than  a 
saucy  child,  he  lays  on  the  canvas  the  true  colours  of 
things  unaltered  and  unbalanced.  I  do  not  doubt 
that  the  grey-green  of  the  window-shutters  and  the 
arsenical  green  of  the  obliquely  crossed  iron  bars 
of  the  balcony  are  painted  with  the  very  trade 
colours  which  the  house-painters  actually  use  for 
these  objects.  Of  course,  this  truth  in  detail  pro- 
duces the  greatest  artistic  untruth  in  the  whole, 
and  the  picture  that  was  to  be  the  Whitsun  sermon 
of  holy  "  Open  Air,"  becomes,  through  Manet's 
inadequacy,  a  speech  for  the  prosecution  of  the  sun. 
Claude  Monet,  the  classic  of  impressionism,  is  not 
to  be  reproached  with  any  incapacity.  His  execution 
never  betrays  him.  He  says  what  he  wants  to  say  to 
the  last  dot  on  the  "i,"  and  if  what  he  has  said  fails  to 
satisfy,  it  is  not  because  he  lacked  words,  but  solely 

117 


On  Art  and  Artists 

because  he  had  no  more  to  say.  Monet  is  a  tippler, 
a  drunkard  so  far  as  light  is  concerned.  He  cannot 
pass  by  any  lively  brilliant  illumination  without 
turning  in  for  a  painting-bout.  Form,  however,  is 
to  him  a  matter  of  indifference  ;  it  has  no  physi- 
ognomy for  him,  nor  does  it  arouse  in  him  any 
association  of  ideas.  He  neglects  it  absolutely.  He 
does  not  draw  or  compose.  In  his  pictures  every- 
thing is  without  form,  as  in  nature  herself,  unless  we 
regard  her  with  pre-existing  thoughts  of  arrange- 
ment and  meaning — in  short,  under  the  optical  and 
logical  categories.  But  he  has  not  his  peer  in 
arresting  the  fugitive  magic  of  sportive  rays,  their 
motes,  their  refractions  on  surfaces  of  every  kind, 
on  fixed  bodies,  liquids,  and  gases.  His  "  Railway 
Station,"  with  its  wide  opening  towards  the  railway 
line,  the  bluish  clouds  of  smoke  and  steam  from 
the  purring  locomotive  transfused  with  light,  the 
shimmering  vapour  under  the  framework  of  the  iron 
roof,  is  unsurpassable  as  a  rendering  of  absolutely 
meaningless  effects  of  light.  Pictures  of  this  sort 
will  become  expressive  only  when  the  photography 
of  natural  colours  is  so  perfected  as  to  admit  of 
instantaneous  copies.  Equally  remarkable  as  paint- 
ing, and  more  valuable  as  higher  art,  is  his  "  Interior 
of  a  Room,"  with  a  shadowy  boy  and  plants  in  the 
foreground,  and  a  shining  floor  flooded  with  blue 
from  daylight  pouring  in  like  a  cataract  through 
the  window  in  the  background.  More  valuable 

118 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution — The  Realists 

artistically,  because  this  interior  of  great  elegance, 
this  outline  of  a  child,  and  this  blue,  fairy-tale  tone 
of  the  flood  of  light,  are  capable  of  awakening  mood, 
i.e.,  will  have  an  effect  not  only  on  the  senses  but 
also  on  the  soul ;  will  stimulate  not  only  the  optic 
centres  of  perception,  but  also  the  higher  centres  of 
conception  and  judgment.  "  Breakfast  in  the  Open 
Air,"  and  two  landscapes  and  marine  pieces,  are 
painted  after  the  same  rule  as  the  two  panels  I  have 
described. 

Gueuneutte's  "  Morning  Porridge "  draws  its 
inspiration  from  Raffaelli,  Degas's  "Dancers  and 
their  Mothers "  from  Manet.  I  put  Degas,  how- 
ever, above  Manet,  for  he  draws  more  lightly  and 
smoothly  than  the  latter,  and  when  he  has  to 
depose  to  ugly  reality  under  the  witness's  oath  of  his 
naturalistic  conscience,  he  does  it,  not  in  an  angry 
and  provoking  way  like  Manet,  but  with  the  divine 
gift  of  humour. 

Monet's  joy  in  light  becomes  with  P.  M.  Renoir 
an  affectation.  He  has  not  the  simple  love  of  truth 
of  his  comrade.  He  falls  into  exaggeration  which 
betrays  conscious  purpose  and  straining  after  origin- 
ality. His  two  "Young  Girls"  at  a  piano  of  the 
colour  of  cranberry  syrup ;  his  nude  figure  of  a 
woman,  on  whose  skin  lights  and  shadows  play  so 
unfortunately  that  she  looks  as  if  beaten  black  and 
blue,  in  places  even  as  if  studded  with  the  corpse- 
stains  of  putrescence  in  the  second  degree ;  the 

119 


On  Art  and  Artists 

"Girl  in  the  Swing,"  and  particularly  the  "Ball  at 
the  Moulin  de  la  Galette,"  seek  rather  to  disconcert 
than  to  convince  us  by  their  unwonted  tones.  These 
pictures  have  historical  importance  as  ancestors. 
From  their  jests  of  colour  are  descended  the  jokes 
of  Besnard,  from  their  rain  of  sunlight  through 
shadowing  foliage  comes  the  piebaldness  of  a  Zorn 
and  particularly  of  a  Max  Lieberman,  who  make  an 
eruption  of  yellow  and  reddish  spots  fall  on  their 
bodies.  Renoir's  "  Girl  Reading "  finally  is  a  simple 
aberration.  He  who  tolerates  such  stumps  of  hands 
in  a  picture  that  is  not  meant  for  a  mere  sketch  is 
either  without  capacity  or  without  conscience — the 
one  as  bad  as  the  other. 

Pissarro  is  the  triumph  of  seeing  without  thought. 
He  seizes  all  the  marvels  of  transformation  which 
the  light  of  various  periods  of  the  year  and  hours 
of  the  day  accomplishes  on  objects  over  which  it 
skims,  with  the  same  certainty  as  Monet,  but  he 
imagines  even  less  over  it  than  does  the  latter. 
With  him  the  impressions  which  he  feels  from  the 
outer  world  do  not  generally  pierce  beyond  the 
back  of  his  eyes.  He  is  a  remarkable  instance 
of  the  sharpest  sight  with  the  retina  in  conjunction 
with  absolute  soul-blindness. 

The  panegyrists  of  impressionism  assert  that  it 
was  not  well  represented  in  the  Caillebotte  collec- 
tion. That  is  a  pretext  of  perplexed  swaggerers 
who  can  now  be  nailed  fast,  and  who  should  in 

120 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— The  Realists 

shame  and  confusion  crowd  here,  where  it  is  easy 
to  test  .their  wild  exaggerations.  Impressionism 
has  never  produced  confessed  more  characteristic 
works  than  those  gathered  in  the  Caillebotte  room. 
It  has  never  been  more  straightforward  than  in 
Manet's  "  Olympia  "  and  Degas's  "  Theatre  Mothers," 
never  more  bright  than  in  Monet's  "  Breakfast  in  the 
Open  Air"  and  Pissarro's  landscape,  never  was  it 
in  a  higher  degree  lightening-sight  and  instantaneous 
painting  than  in  Monet's  "  Railway  Station."  Every 
verdict  on  impressionism  based  on  this  room  is 
an  adequately  grounded  verdict,  against  which  the 
attempted  higher  appeal  to  I  know  not  what  un- 
known works  must  be  rejected. 

The  painters  who  entered  on  the  new  move- 
ment are  interesting  as  men,  because  they  aimed 
at  much,  and  at  what  was  comparatively  great. 
They  are,  from  an  artistic  standpoint,  uninteresting, 
because  they  achieved  little.  It  is  the  old  tragedy 
of  the  will,  to  which  the  strength  plays  traitor ;  of 
the  mind,  which  subjectively  and  in  posse  brings 
about  the  highest,  but  objectively  produces  nothing, 
because  it  fails  in  realisation.  The  Manets  and 
Monets,  the  Renoirs  and  Pissarros,  wanted  to 
create  a  new  art  by  returning  to  the  old  truth. 
It  gives  them  a  right  to  reckon  themselves  as 
belonging  to  the  family  of  the  illustrious  heroes  of 
the  Renaissance,  who  emancipated  themselves  from 
the  traditions  of  the  Byzantine  School,  as  the 

121 


On  Art  and  Artists 

former  did  from  the  sham-classic  rule  of  a  Couture, 
a  Cabanel,  or  a  Baudry.  The  man  affected  by  a 
Cimabue  and  a  Giotto  will  not  be  unmoved  in  the 
presence  of  Manet  and  Monet,  especially  of  Monet, 
for  he  performed  a  creative  act.  He  said :  "  Let 
there  be  light,"  and  "there  was  light"  in  painting. 
The  miracle  of  Genesis  is  still  being  wrought  to-day, 
and  only  in  Gustave  Moreau  and  the  Prse-Raphaelites 
has  the  Logos  proved  itself  powerless. 

After  paying  them  this  tribute  of  recognition  we 
will  also  take  leave  of  them.  They  have  pointed 
out  paths,  but  they  have  not  walked  in  them.  In 
place  of  intricate  Chinese  signs,  they  have  invented 
a  free,  brilliantly  progressive  alphabet,  but  in  this 
script  they  had  nothing  to  say.  Their  art  is  merely 
optical  —  neither  emotional  nor  ideal.  They  were 
commonplace  —  nay,  to  some  extent  —  unbeautiful 
souls.  That  is  why,  despite  their  honest  passion  for 
truth,  and  despite  their  precious  medium  of  sunshine, 
they  have  not  been  able  to  produce  genuine  art-work. 

They  have  meanwhile  not  lived  in  vain.  Their 
influence  has  been  fruitful.  At  first  it  indeed 
generally  did  harm.  All  bunglers  flew  to  imitating 
them,  and  the  impudent  rabble  of  both  worlds 
alleged  they  understood  their  teaching  thus  :  "  Draw- 
ing is  superstition,  and  the  more  repulsive  a  hide 
looks,  so  much  more  beautiful  and  especially  more 
modern  it  is."  But  after  this  scum  of  the  artistic 
rabble  those  who  had  a  vocation  came  over  to  the 

122 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Alfred  Sisley 

new  movement,  and  showed  what  it  could  achieve 
in  consecrated  hands.  With  the  open  air  Roll 
became  the  master  he  is  ;  impressionism  brought  a 
Brangwyn  to  maturity ;  truth — the  beautiful  truth, 
not  the  repulsive,  vulgar  truth — found  its  triumphs 
in  a  Whistler  and  a  Sargent.  The  weaknesses  and 
mistakes  of  the  forerunners  have  furnished  despic- 
able parasites  with  the  transitory  reputation,  among 
the  weak-minded,  for  genius,  which  will  quickly 
disappear  before  the  recognition  of  their  wretched- 
ness. Their  lofty  views,  and,  to  some  extent,  the 
means  of  expression  suggested  by  them,  have, 
however,  equipped  men  of  illustrious  talent,  who 
permanently  enrich  mankind's  property  in  works 
of  beauty. 


ALFRED   SISLEY 

Alfred  Sisley  was  one  of  the  most  renowned 
amongst  that  group  of  realists  to  which  I  alluded 
in  my  foregoing  appreciation  of  the  Caillebotte  room 
in  the  Luxembourg  Museum.  He,  too,  like  his  com- 
panions— Manet  and  Monet,  Pissarro  and  Renouard 
— was  a  rebel  against  traditions,  and  a  preacher  of 
new  gospels.  He  also  denied  old  idols  with  fine 
disdain,  and  preached  doctrines  that  seemed  to 
him  to  embrace  in  themselves  the  whole  truth. 

123 


On  Art  and  Artists 

He  managed,  indeed,  to  collect  a  few  convinced 
disciples,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  hardly  any  con- 
gregation about  his  altar  or  pulpit ;  and  this  was 
due  simply  to  the  sobriety  and  uncongeniality  of 
his  dogmas,  which  failed  to  satisfy  the  cravings  for 
aesthetic  devotion  of  the  faithful. 

Sisley  was  a  landscape  painter.  He  was  purely 
this,  to  the  exclusion  of  every  admixture.  He  never 
introduced  a  human  figure,  and,  so  far  as  I  remember, 
only  one  of  an  animal,  into  his  paintings.  The  only 
life  that  moved  and  stirred  in  them  was  that  of 
atmosphere :  the  play  of  lights,  of  their  refrac- 
tions, of  their  coloured  dust,  of  their  vanishing  in 
shadows  and  darkness  of  various  depths.  Even  the 
vegetable  world,  though  one  of  the  most  important 
elements  in  academical  landscape  painting,  he  treated 
slightingly.  He  had  no  respect  for  the  attractive 
individuality  of  a  tree.  It  interested  him  at  most 
as  an  object  in  his  field  of  view,  which  catches  and 
diverts  the  beams  of  the  sun  in  a  particular  way.  He 
saw  nothing  of  the  marvels  of  colour  and  form  of 
the  minute  life,  that  is  displayed  in  a  piece  of  turf, 
a  bush,  or  underwood,  and  reveals  to  the  thoughtful 
and  experienced  eye  the  whole  nature-tragedy  of 
the  struggle  for  existence :  the  despairing  striving 
in  the  various  plants  for  air  and  light,  or  moisture 
and  shade ;  the  victorious  domination  of  one  or 
several  species ;  the  meek  supplication  for  mercy  of 
single  scattered  flowers  or  plants ;  the  defeat  and 

124 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Alfred  Sisley 

flight  of  families  unable  to  maintain  their  position 
against  superior  antagonists ;  the  intrusion  of  bold 
strangers  demanding  for  themselves  a  place  among 
the  old  settlers  ;  the  confederacies  of  friendly  groups 
that  reside  together  and  trust  each  other ;  the  single 
combats  of  enemies  seeking  to  throttle  and  uproot 
one  another.  He  who  has  never  gazed  deeply  into 
nature  perhaps  regards  all  these  pictures  of  combat 
and  triumph  as  mere  phrases,  corresponding  to 
nothing  real.  The  biologist  of  plants  knows  better, 
to  be  sure,  and  many  a  landscape  painter  too ;  so 
did  the  first  English  Prae  -  Raphaelites  especially. 
However  unbearable  their  vagaries  and  perversions 
may  be — on  these  I  will  not  enter  now — this  one 
thing  must  be  said  in  their  praise :  they  understand 
and  love  plant-life.  For  them  every  grass  and 
herb,  to  say  nothing  of  those  lords,  the  trees,  has  a 
physiognomy,  a  personal  mystery,  which  they  know 
how  to  unriddle,  and  reveal,  or,  at  any  rate,  indicate. 
Of  all  this  Sisley  knows  nothing.  For  him  a  grassy 
mead  is  a  plain  of  colours  with  gradations,  starred 
with  varied  patches  ;  always  a  mere  study  of  light 
and  nothing  else ;  never  an  expression  of  events 
of  life. 

Here  lies  the  limitation  of  his  capacity.  In  my 
book,  "  Paradoxes,"  I  have  tried  to  classify  painters 
according  to  the  rank  of  that  segment  of  the  central 
nerve-system,  in  which  their  talent  is  rooted.  By  this 
method  I  arrived  at  a  distinction  between  painters 

125 


On  Art  and  Artists 

who  feel  joy  only  in  colours  and  their  harmonies, 
and  others  who,  besides  delighting  in  colour,  often 
even  without  this,  have  a  developed  sense  of  the 
proportion  of  things  in  space,  therefore,  of  forms, 
reciprocal  distances,  movements  so  far  as  these  latter 
can  be  indicated  by  means  of  the  painter's  fixed 
process :  those,  in  short,  who  know  how  to  elicit 
from  visible  phenomena  an  invisible,  emotional 
significance,  and  to  represent  them  so  that  they 
express,  in  a  natural  way,  psychical  processes  and 
feelings,  without  becoming  falsified  through  the 
intentional  introduction  of  arbitrary  features  foreign 
to  them.  Now,  Sisley  is  an  instructive  instance  of 
those  painters  who  are  painters  only  through  their 
retina  and  lowest  centres  of  perception,  viz.,  their 
feeling  for  colour,  and  the  vivid  sensation  of  enjoy- 
ment it  affords  them. 

Sisley  has  the  most  delicate  sense  for  the  lightest 
gradations  and  depths  of  colour.  If  I  may  use 
an  image  from  an  adjacent  intellectual  domain,  he 
does  optically  what  an  ear  would  do  acoustically 
which  was  capable  of  feeling  purely  all  the  tones 
of  a  chromatic  divided,  perhaps,  into  sixty- fourths. 
This  faculty  gives  him  his  rank  as  an  artist,  but 
it  was  also  the  torturing  demon  of  his  life ;  for 
he  wanted  to  reproduce  with  equal  clearness  what 
he  saw  so  distinctly.  That  is,  however,  impossible 
by  the  medium  of  oil-painting.  Let  it  never  be 
forgotten  that  the  colours  an  artist  uses  are  very 

126 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Alfred  Sisley 

different  from  the  natural  appearances  which  they 
wish  to  recall.  All  painting  is  a  translation  that 
falls  short  of  the  original  text,  and  even  the  most 
refined  palette  only  permits  a  vulgar  groping  after 
the  subtle  play  of  colour  in  the  reality.  It  is  sheer 
convention,  to  which  our  eyes  are  artificially  trained, 
that  we  recognise  in  definite  play  of  colours,  human 
flesh,  an  evening  sky,  foliage,  or  mirroring  water. 
In  all  cases  we  have,  at  most,  approximations  before 
us,  and  even  a  man's  countenance  by  Franz  Hals 
reproduces  the  true  coloration  of  the  skin  on  a 
human  face,  as  little  as  perhaps  the  well  -  known 
scherzo  in  the  second  movement  of  the  Pastoral  re- 
produces the  true  note  of  the  golden  oriole.  Sisley, 
overlooked,  like  the  majority  indeed  of  impressionists, 
and  like  many  very  juvenile  stipplers  and  black  and 
white  artists,  this  technical  main  condition — if  you 
like,  this  main  defect — of  all  painting  with  media 
as  at  present  known ;  and  he  obstinately  insisted 
on  overcoming  a  difficulty  that  is,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  insuperable.  The  whole  labour  of  his  life  is 
a  struggle  with  the  resistance  of  matter,  intensely 
pathetic,  but,  nevertheless,  finally  only  irritating, 
because  its  utter  hopelessness  is  admitted.  He  tries 
to  square  the  circle,  which,  as  may  be  proved  to 
him,  is  not  feasible,  and  he  aimlessly  dissipates  his 
energies  in  this  futile  effort.  He  is  bent  on  arrest- 
ing the  most  fugitive  vanishing,  the  gentlest  swaying 
of  a  ray  of  light,  and,  as  it  were,  the  fourth  decimal 

127 


On  Art  and  Artists 

place  of  a  fraction  of  colour,  and  on  fixing  it  on 
the  canvas.  And  as  he  cannot  conjure  forth  this 
feat  from  his  colour  -  tubes,  in  spite  of  the  most 
learned  and  complicated  mixing,  he  tries  to  reach 
his  goal  by  newly  invented  tricks  of  the  brush. 
Thus  he  gets  to  dotting  and  spotting.  Innumer- 
able minute  touches  with  the  brush  are  to  leave 
behind  a  chaos  of  colour-dots,  from  which  the  eye 
may  come  to  discern,  or,  at  any  rate,  get  an 
inkling  of,  the  play  of  colour  in  the  actual  object. 
This  method  is  extremely  laborious  and  risky.  It 
postulates  great  patience  and  ability  to  emphasise 
in  the  minute  work  the  firm  lines  of  the  drawing. 
For  if  one  loses  sight  of  these  lines,  or  cannot 
make  them  ring  out  clearly  from  the  colour  gamut 
disseminated  equally  over  the  whole  canvas,  the 
picture  dissolves  into  a  shapeless  daub.  Sisley  him- 
self is  often  wrecked  on  this  rock.  By  his  method, 
however,  in  a  few  happy  moments,  he  obtains,  to 
be  sure,  effects  which  would  scarcely  be  deemed 
possible.  Then  we  may  enjoy  in  his  pictures  a  real 
dance  of  sun-motes  in  transfulgent  air. 

A  single  picture  of  Sisley's  even  the  connoisseur 
easily  passes  by.  It  is  insignificant.  Even  a  whole 
row  of  pictures  which  represent  different  themes  will 
hardly  make  a  great  impression.  At  most,  certain 
delicacies  of  tone,  a  certain  far-sighted  clearness  of 
atmosphere,  make  an  impression.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  you  see  near  one  another  panels  which  depict 

128 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Alfred  Sisley 

the  same  subjects  at  different  hours  of  the  day  or 
seasons  of  the  year,  under  different  lights  and  con- 
ditions of  weather,  you  grasp  in  astonishment  the 
meaning  of  this  artist.  The  subject  is  the  same, 
but  so  altered  as  to  be  hardly  recognisable.  People 
marvel  at  the  power  with  which  Sisley  can  arrest 
strangely  changing  aspects,  and  gain  some  faint  idea 
of  the  difficulty  which  the  exposition  of  observations 
calls  for,  observations  which  are  generally  out  of  reach 
of  any  but  the  most  acute  feeling  and  the  most  painful 
attention.  Sisley  has  openly  admitted  that  his  skill 
is  unintelligible  without  the  key  afforded  by  com- 
parison. That  was  why  he  exhibited,  as  a  rule,  at 
least  two — usually  many  more  —  treatments  of  the 
same  subject.  Thus  in  the  Salon  in  the  Champs  de 
Mars  in  1898,  he  showed  a  beach,  "Lady's  Cove," 
in  two  lights;  and,  in  1896,  Moret  Church,  in  trans- 
parent pale  lilac  just  before  sunset,  and  also  in 
softly-veiled  slate-grey  in  rainy  weather.  I  remember 
a  row  of  studies  of  the  same  village  church,  which 
ran  through  all  the  divisions  of  the  spectrum,  one 
after  another,  and,  on  each  succeeding  panel,  was  a 
revelation  the  more  dazzling  in  proportion  as  one 
already  knew  its  form  in  all  its  details.  Sisley  has 
hardly  ever  had  his  equal  in  transposing  a  piece 
into  different  keys. 

Admiration  for  the  almost  morbidly  exaggerated 
sensitiveness  to  the  slightest  differences  in  tones 
of  colour,  and  sympathetic  feeling  for  the  artist's 

129  I 


On  Art  and  Artists 

despair  at  the  inadequacy  of  a  technique,  gross, 
after  all,  as  the  medium  of  the  most  delicate 
intentions  —  these  are  the  impressions  which  one 
feels  at  even  the  most  friendly  consideration  of 
Sisley's  most  successful  works.  Dreaming  and  long- 
ing, reminiscence  and  presentiment,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  never  inspire,  for  they  are  absolutely  lack- 
ing in  all  psychic,  emotional,  and  imaginative  sense. 
From  the  example  of  Sisley,  we  recognise  the 
accuracy  of  the  maxim  which,  when  put  nakedly, 
sounds  almost  provokingly  paradoxical,  and  yet  is 
literally  correct,  viz.,  that  landscape  painting,  or, 
at  any  rate,  a  certain  kind  of  landscape  painting, 
is  the  most  literary  of  all  species  of  plastic  art, 
the  one  from  which  the  least  is  received,  and  into 
which  the  most  is  put.  Landscape  painting  seems 
to  reproduce  nature  herself,  and  therefore  necessarily 
to  be  as  objective  as  a  land  surveyor's  plan,  or  even 
as  a  photograph.  It  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  incom- 
parably more  subjective  than  portrait,  historical,  or 
genre  painting,  for  there  is  throughout,  not  nature 
over  again,  but  the  features  of  nature  which  have 
excited  the  attention  of  the  painter,  and  aroused  in 
him  a  mood.  It  therefore  discloses  to  us,  more  than 
any  other  kind  of  painting,  the  soul  of  the  painter, 
the  peculiarity  of  his  mode  of  feeling,  the  bent  of 
his  dreams,  and  the  object  of  his  longing.  If  every 
work  of  art  is  a  confession  on  the  part  of  the 
artist,  landscape  painting  is  a  particularly  complete 

130 


The  Triumph  of  a  Revolution — Alfred  Sisley 

and  honest  acknowledgment.  It  is  a  portrait  of 
the  artist,  which  he  himself  has  painted,  transcribing 
all  the  wrinkles  of  his  soul. 

Nature  in  herself  is  absolutely  expressionless. 
The  feeling  of  the  person  who  contemplates  her 
first  adds  expression,  just  as  his  senses  translate 
the  movements  of  the  atmosphere  and  matter,  which 
are,  in  themselves,  devoid  of  colour  and  sound  to 
the  perceptible  values  of  colours  and  tones.  The 
contemplation  of  nature  awakens  in  us  associations 
of  ideas,  and  these  we  project  into  nature.  There- 
fore we  find,  again,  in  this  latter  the  whole  range 
of  emotion  and  thought  of  our  consciousness,  and 
nature,  therefore,  influences  every  one  who  contem- 
plates her  correspondingly  to  his  education  and  mental 
habits. 

Landscape  painting  is,  then,  also  a  continuous 
illustration  of  the  literature  of  its  time.  It  is  anti- 
classical  in  the  Renaissance  and  Late  Renaissance 
up  to  Poussin  ;  Ossianic  and  Rousseauesque  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and,  in  Corot,  is  Lamartinish. 
It  would,  of  course,  be  going  too  far  to  point  out 
here  what  the  relations  are  between  each  individual 
great  landscape  painter  and  the  writings  of  his 
contemporaries  ;  and  how  certain  notable  exceptions 
from  the  rule  of  parallelism  between  landscape  paint- 
ing and  the  fashion  of  the  day  in  literature — Salvator 
Rosa,  Ruysdael,  and  Turner  (just  to  mention  only 
three) — are  to  be  explained.  It  is,  meanwhile,  not 


On  Art  and  Artists 

to  be  disputed  that  the  landscape  painter  approaches 
nature  with  a  soul  filled  with  the  literary  spirit  of 
his  time,  and  puts  into  her  what  he  has  retained 
from  his  reading.  A  painting,  then,  awakens  also 
in  the  mind  of  the  spectator  an  echo  of  all  the 
poetic  melodies  that  have  enthralled  him,  and  it  is 
the  soft  echo  of  these  thousands  of  poetic  voices  in 
our  soul,  to  which  we  listen  when  we  enjoy  a 
landscape  painting. 

We  listen,  however,  in  vain  before  a  picture  of 
Sisley's  ;  all  is  still  in  our  soul.  This  is  because  the 
painter  has  regarded  nature  from  a  wholly  unliterary 
standpoint  She  awakens  in  him  no  associations 
of  ideas,  therefore  his  pictures  awaken  none  in  us. 
He  has  seen  the  play  of  colour,  found  his  delight 
in  it,  and  has  taken  no  further  thought,  but  has 
merely  striven  to  reproduce  it  accurately.  We 
follow  his  efforts  with  curiosity,  and  approve  the 
results  if  they  are  successful.  But  in  this  appraise- 
ment, humour  and  imaginative  power  have  no 
part. 

Is  such  landscape  painting  art,  or  a  clever  trick  ? 
The  question  is  worth  careful  consideration. 


132 


Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Camille  Pissarro 


CAMILLE   PISSARRO 

One  of  the  most  interesting  artists  in  our  times 
was  this  Pissarro,  born  at  St  Thomas  in  the  Danish 
Antilles,  though  of  a  Dutch  Jewish  family  of  Spanish 
extraction  settled  in  Curac.oa,  who  died  in  Paris  in 
1903  at  the  age  of  seventy-three.  He  was  a  born 
painter,  of  the  class  whose  sense  of  form  hardly 
exceeds  the  average,  whose  remarkably  fine  percep- 
tion of  colour,  however,  reacting  very  strongly  on 
every  optical  irritation,  makes  the  excitement  of 
the  retina  the  source  for  them  of  profound  feelings 
of  pleasure  or  the  contrary,  and  fixes  their  idea 
and  thought,  to  a  certain  extent  polarises  it  accord- 
ing to  colour. 

It  is  sufficient  to  say  few  words  as  to  his  outer 
life.  Impelled  by  his  bent  for  painting,  he  came 
to  Paris  at  the  age  of  twenty,  and  had  the  good 
fortune  to  be  taken  as  a  pupil  by  old  Corot.  He 
saw  Th.  Rousseau  and  Millet  working  with  his 
master,  and  he  lived  during  the  most  susceptible 
years  of  youth  amongst  such  originals,  in  the  most 
glorious  Barbizon  period.  His  natural  tendency 
directed  him  imperiously  to  landscape  painting. 
This,  then,  is  the  substance  of  his  whole  life  as  an 
artist.  Incited  by  Millet's  example,  in  his  young 
days  he  put  peasants  in  his  fields  and  meadows, 
but  they  were  always  mere  accessories  in  the  land- 
scape, and  arrested  the  eye  less  than  the  ground 

133 


On  Art  and  Artists 

and  plants.  He  had  then  also  sufficient  knowledge 
of  himself  to  abandon,  at  an  early  stage,  human 
figures,  for  he  realised  that  there  was  more  life  in 
the  tiniest  sod  of  his  turf  than  in  his  conscientious 
but  insignificant  villagers.  In  the  high  school,  in 
which  it  was  his  privilege  to  learn,  he  acquired  that 
certainty  and  force  which  distinguished  him  up  to 
his  old  age.  When,  however,  he  had  mastered 
Corot's  brilliant  technique  and  Rousseau's  draughts- 
manship and  composition,  he  ceased  to  be  an 
imitative  disciple,  and  with  full  deliberation,  went 
his  own  ways,  which  for  a  time  lay  far  from  Corot's 
goal,  but  at  last,  by  a  wonderfully  circuitous  route, 
brought  him  back  to  it  once  more.  Not  long  did 
he  try  modestly  and  laudably,  with  a  good  young 
man's  carefully  moderated  works,  in  the  Salon  for 
certificates  of  industry  and  good  marks  from  the 
academical  masters.  At  once  he  joined  the  hot- 
headed set;  he  exhibited,  from  1864  onwards,  only 
in  the  "  Salon  of  the  Rejected "  and  with  the 
"  Independents,"  and  became  one  of  the  most 
prominent  men  in  the  group  of  impressionists. 

Nothing  is  funnier  than  to  read  the  explanation 
of  the  terms  "  Impressionists"  and  "Impressionism" 
of  certain  art-gossipers  among  the  critics  in  Germany. 
These  transcendental  phrasegrinders,  who  have  no 
notion  how  the  word  arose,  believe  it  was  invented 
by  painters  or  aesthetics  with  the  set  purpose  of 
characterising  an  artistic  tendency,  and  of  indicating 
elliptically  a  method  of  execution ;  and,  with  the 

134 


Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Camille  Pissarro 

rapturous,  prophet-mien  common  among  this  brother- 
hood, they  treat  us  to  the  deepest  and  most  breath- 
ravishing  explanations  of  the  word.  The  truth  is 
that  the  expression  owes  its  origin  to  the  jest  of 
a  comic  paper  that  intended  nothing  special  by 
it,  least  of  all  an  aesthetic  theory.  In  1874  the 
painters  who  for  ten  years  had  been  known  as 
the  "Open  Air"  artists  or  "Realists"  exhibited  a 
number  of  their  works  in  the  reception-room  of 
the  writer  and  photographer,  Nadar.  Claude  Monet 
appeared,  amongst  others,  with  a  sunset,  which  was 
quite  in  the  manner  of  Turner's  last  years,  and  he 
entitled  it  "  Impression."  It  was  a  remarkable  and 
characteristic  work,  without  form,  consisting  only  of 
streaks  of  red  and  orange,  in  the  highest  degree 
offensive  to  those  who  will  not  have  the  con- 
templation of  nature  restricted  to  the  observation 
of  colours,  but  look  also  for  outline  and  modelling. 
A  wanton  scoffer,  making  merry  in  the  "  Charivari " 
over  this  exhibition,  seized  on  Monet's  "  Impression" 
as  the  pattern  of  the  new  style,  sneered  at  it  in 
the  tone  of  a  genuine  back  -  biter,  and,  with  the 
object  of  belittling  them,  called  Monet's  fellow- 
combatants  "  Impressionists,"  by  which  he  meant 
only  that,  according  to  his  view,  their  pictures  were 
daubs,  just  like  Claude  Monet's  "  Impression."  That 
is  the  simple  origin  of  the  word  into  which  the 
German  commentators  have  read  something  exceed- 
ingly mysterious  and  wonderful. 

Pissarro  belonged  to  Monet's  circle  of  friends,  and 
135 


On  Art  and  Artists 

fell  under  the  designation,  which  rapidly  became 
current,  of  "  Impressionist."  In  his  case,  it  only 
means  that  he  sought  and  found  in  nature  only 
effects  of  light,  only  the  play  of  sunbeams  on  things 
and  around  things. 

In  the  three  or  four  centuries  that  landscape 
painting  has  been  raised  to  the  rank  of  a  branch  of 
art — I  leave  out  of  consideration,  in  this  place,  the 
ancient  landscape,  because  the  modern  development 
is  unconnected  with  it  —  an  enquiry,  which  enters 
into  the  motives  and  aims  of  painters,  can  distinguish 
three  different  kinds  of  landscape,  which  I  would 
term  respectively  the  literary,  the  lyric,  and  the 
optical.  I  do  not  choose  these  new  designations  for 
old  and  well-known  things  arbitrarily,  but  because, 
in  my  opinion,  they  mark  what  is  essential  better 
than  do  the  prescriptive  ones. 

Literary  landscape,  on  which  I  have  already 
briefly  expressed  my  views  in  treating  of  Sisley, 
is  that  which  traditionally  goes  under  the  names  of 
historical,  heroic,  ideal,  or  artificial  landscape.  It  is 
not  prompted  by  delight  in  nature,  but  is  either 
the  offspring  of  imaginative  power  or  a  piece  of 
intellectual  know-all  work,  in  both  cases,  the  result 
of  reading.  It  is,  to  put  it  briefly,  a  continuous 
illustration  of  the  literature  in  vogue.  Since  the 
Renaissance,  ancient  heroic  materials  have  been 
specially  favoured  in  poetry.  The  Spanish  theatre, 
Corneille,  and  Racine  lived  on  them.  Even  if  they 
placed  the  lofty  exploits  of  their  heroes  in  a  less 

136 


Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Camille  Pissarro 

remote  past  and  on  another  stage  than  the  ancient 
world,  still,  they  endowed  them  with  hundreds  of 
reminiscences  of  the  Graeco-Roman  mythology  and 
history.  Poussin,  and  even  Claude  Lorrain,  con- 
ceived their  landscapes  as  the  frames  of  heroic 
romances  and  dramas.  They  were  designed  as 
stage  decoration,  which  the  spectator  might  people 
from  his  memory  with  figures  in  Roman  mail-armour 
or  Gothic  plate-armour,  familiar  to  him  from  con- 
temporary poetry.  In  order  to  facilitate  this  play 
of  fancy,  ancient  temples  or  ruins,  perhaps  even  men 
in  classical  garb,  helpfully  stimulate  the  association 
of  ideas.  J.  J.  Rousseau  substituted  the  sentimental 
for  the  heroic  fashion  ;  but  the  return  to  nature, 
which  he  and  his  innumerable  imitators  preached, 
did  not  to  landscape  painters  at  all  mean  the  sinking 
into  the  contemplation  of  God's  actual  world,  but 
only  the  substitution  for  the  heroes  and  knights,  the 
upright  or  fallen  marble  pillars  of  their  predecessors, 
of  shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  rustic  cottages  and 
herdsmen's  fires.  Thus  landscape  painting  illustrated 
in  turn  Orlando  Furioso,  Jerusalem  Delivered,  the 
y£neid,  the  tragedies  of  Corneille  and  Racine, 
Rousseau,  Gessner,  and  Ossian  ;  then,  nearer  to  our 
time,  Victor  Hugo  and  the  Romantics,  Zola  and 
the  Naturalists,  down  to  the  latest  symbolists  and 
mystics,  whose  contemplation,  so  far  as  one  can 
speak  of  such  a  thing  in  their  gassy  heads,  greets  us 
from  the  pictures  of  Burne-Jones  and  his  continental 
imitators,  and  also  from  the  landscape  compositions 

137 


On  Art  and  Artists 

of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  and  Henri  Martin.  It  may 
be  safely  affirmed  that,  of  the  pictures  of  literary 
landscape,  not  a  single  one  would  have  been 
painted  unless  a  book  or  some  species  of  literature 
had,  to  some  extent,  commissioned  them  with  an 
exact  specification  of  all  details. 

Lyrical  landscape  is  that  which  is  perhaps  also 
designated  landscape  of  mood.  It  is  more  consistent 
with  nature  than  literary  landscape.  It  owes  much 
less  to  reminiscence  of  books  or  plays  ;  its  only  relation 
to  literature  is  that  through  this  the  painter  is  schooled 
to  be  more  susceptible  of  certain  features  of  nature. 
Landscape  pictures  of  this  species  could  be  painted 
under  some  circumstances  by  artists  who  had  never 
read  a  book  or  heard  a  poem,  if  only  their  own 
disposition  were  attuned  to  poetry.  For  this  painting 
the  landscape  itself  is  a  poem — ballad,  romance,  or 
idyll,  in  many  cases,  perhaps,  even  a  melodrama.  It 
tells  some  tale,  or  hints  at  one,  the  more  delicately 
so  much  the  more  expressively.  The  wrinkles  of 
the  ground,  the  irregularity  and  abruptness  of  the 
lines  of  mountains,  the  gloom  of  the  woods,  awaken 
presentiments ;  our  yearning  follows  the  paths  which 
are  lost  in  the  blue  distance,  or  behind  hills  and 
bends ;  coolness  rises  from  the  foaming  rivulet ; 
mystery  broods  over  the  motionless  fish  -  pond. 
Everything  unspoken,  or  partly  unspeakable,  which 
a  keenly  perceptive  man  of  deep  contemplation  im- 
ports into  nature,  moves  and  reigns  in  and  over  the 
lyric  landscape  painting.  It  expresses  a  complex, 

138 


Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Camille  Pissarro 

subjective  mood,  embracing  in  itself  many  elements 
of  sense,  feeling,  and  thought — the  joy  of  spring, 
the  melancholy  of  autumn,  the  cheerlessness  of  winter, 
the  shudder  at  the  weird,  the  dread  of  eternity.  It 
is  viewed  anthropomorphically.  It  owes  its  strongest 
effects  to  traits  which  do  not  exist  in  nature  her- 
self, but  are  added  to  her  by  human  imagination. 
Japanese  art  knows  only  lyric  landscape.  In 
Europe  it  was  first  developed  by  the  great  Dutch- 
men, Ruysdael  and  Van  Ostade,  to  attain  in  Corot 
its  zenith  unsurpassed  up  to  the  present  time.  As 
it  lays  expression  into  its  forms,  it  must  figure  the 
latter  distinctly.  It  draws  and  composes,  therefore, 
with  deliberation.  It  proceeds  from  the  realistically 
rendered  topographical  anecdote,  even  if  it  achieves 
this  by  the  transcendental. 

Optical  landscape,  finally,  is  that  which  seeks  to 
reproduce  only  the  play  of  convergent  or  divergent, 
of  reflected  or  broken  light  in  nature.  It  is  neither 
book-illustration  nor  views  of  places.  It  does  not 
invite  to  the  enjoyment  of  nature  in  the  sense  of 
the  Sunday  excursionist  from  big  towns,  or  the 
summer  tripper.  It  offers  no  scene  with  suggestion 
that  we  should  live  out  our  subjective  moods  there. 
The  outlines,  the  plastic  of  the  bodies,  are  a  matter 
of  indifference  to  it.  Everything  is  merely  a  patch 
of  colour  to  it ;  only  an  arena  of  dancing  sun- 
beams. It  wants  to  reproduce,  as  truly  and  fully 
as  possible,  the  change  and  merging  of  lights  and 
shades,  the  reciprocal  influence  of  neighbouring  and 

139 


On  Art  and  Artists 

overlapping  colours,  the  crescendo  of  hues  in  the 
foreground  and  their  fading  away  in  the  perspective. 
It  systematically  rates  the  intellectual  and  moral 
relations  as  foreign  to  its  art.  It  is  not  enthusiastic 
for  a  particular  season  of  the  year  or  a  certain 
architecture  of  cliffs  and  mountains.  It  knows 
nothing  of  the  secret  magic  of  water,  heath,  forest, 
or  snow-plain.  It  gives  light  in  scales,  and  in 
harmonised  and  dissonant  chords,  and  will  give 
nothing  else.  This  landscape  painting  is  an  art 
of  purely  sensual  preception,  which  may  call  pre- 
existent  feelings  and  thoughts  over  the  threshold 
of  consciousness,  but  brings  about  no  feelings  and 
thoughts  of  itself.  It  is  to  be  compared  with  the 
effect  of  the  yEolian  harp,  which  stimulates  our 
hearing  with  melodious  sound,  but  says  nothing 
thematically  differentiated  to  it.  Debussy,  latterly, 
consciously  strives  back  to  these  origins  of  acoustic 
pleasure.  The  disciples  of  Turner  in  England  and 
on  the  Continent  enter  in  landscape  on  the  same  way 
back  to  a  style  of  painting  which,  neglecting  form, 
lays  stress  on  the  harmonies  of  light  and  colour. 

In  practice,  besides  the  three  sharply  outlined 
species  of  landscape  painting,  manifold  transitions 
and  mixed  forms  are,  of  course,  also  observable.  If, 
perhaps,  G.  Poussin  represents  literary,  Corot  lyric, 
Turner,  at  the  time  the  formation  of  his  cataract 
began,  optical  landscape,  in  its  theoretical  purity, 
we  see  in  Claude  Lorrain  a  revelling  in  light 
and  a  poetic  mood  penetrate  the  mytho  -  heroic 

140 


Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Camille  Pissarro 

literary  painting  which  he  owes  to  his  artistic  train- 
ing, and  from  which,  in  spite  of  higher  flights,  he 
could  never  entirely  free  himself;  and  Segantini  is 
a  good  example  of  an  originally  lyrical  landscape 
that  is  always  more  strongly  inclining  to  the  optical  ; 
for  if  at  the  beginning  he  loved  to  copy  high 
mountains,  at  last  he  busied  himself  only  with 
fixing  the  wonder  of  light  in  thin  air  on  the  mirror- 
ing ice  and  glacier  snow. 

Camille  Pissarro  was  mainly,  in  separate  periods 
of  his  artistic  development  exclusively,  an  optical 
landscape  painter.  The  attunement  with  nature 
which  is  afforded  by  the  meeting  of  mountain  and 
wood,  water  and  reed,  by  the  forms  of  trees  and  cliffs, 
the  pecularities  of  plant-life,  and  the  movements  of 
open  country,  he  evidently  did  not  feel  and  he  cannot 
arouse.  He  was  nothing,  and  he  wanted  to  be  nothing, 
but  a  priest  and  poet  of  light.  When  light  fell,  what 
objects  it  illumined  and  played  on  was  a  matter  of 
such  indifference  to  him  that  this  landscape  painter 
painted  city  scenes  just  as  often  as  those  of  open 
country.  Views  of  the  Paris  Boulevards,  the  Avenue 
de  F Opera,  the  Seine  seen  from  the  bridges,  the 
streets  and  squares  of  Rouen,  occupy  quite  as  large 
a  space  in  his  work  as  studies  of  the  valley  of  the 
Marne  and  the  hills  of  Southern  England.  Thanks 
to  the  good  school  from  which  he  came,  he  never, 
like  so  many  of  his  rivals,  melts  away  into  form- 
lessness. He  could  not  refrain  from  drawing 

141 


On  Art  and  Artists 

distinctly.  It  was  the  movement  of  his  bold  and 
skilful  hand  that  pervaded  his  will ;  but  the  sole 
hero  of  his  pictures,  to  whom  he  gave  his  love  and 
attention,  was  light. 

After  he  had  outgrown  the  formulae  of  the  Corot 
type  of  landscape,  he  sought  with  persistent,  hot 
endeavour  to  find  a  method  that  would  qualify  him 
to  draw  into  his  picture  as  much  light  as  possible, 
as  intense  light  as  possible,  even  the  whole  sun. 
What  he  himself  found  failed  to  satisfy  him.  When 
Seurat,  who  suffered  undoubtedly  from  eye  troubles, 
came  forward  with  his  stippling,  Pissarro  at  once  took 
possession  of  the  new  manner,  and  became  a  stippler 
even  unconsciously.  Seurat,  it  is  well  known,  taught 
that  the  painter,  if  he  would  give  truth  and  force  to 
colour,  must  not  mix  the  shade  on  his  palette  and 
transfer  it  ready-made  to  the  canvas,  but  must  dissect 
it  into  its  primary  colours,  which  are  known  from  the 
spectrum,  and  insert  them  in  little  dabs  by  one 
another,  so  as  to  leave  it  to  the  eye  to  put  them 
together  again  on  the  retina.  This  optical  proceeding 
professes  to  have  been  learnt  by  listening  to  nature, 
which  also  offers  us  only  as  single  colours  what  we 
feel  as  a  synthesis  of  colour.  The  theory  is  sheer 
nonsense.  Nothing  of  the  sort  happens  in  nature. 
When  we  see  green  grass  we  do  not  see  yellow  and 
blue  grass  which  our  eye  mixes  into  green,  but  we 
see  a  body  proceed  from  the  aether-vibrations  of 
the  undulations,  which  call  forth  on  the  retina  a 

142 


Triumph  of  a  Revolution— Camilla  Pissarro 

sensation  of  green  ;  and  to  imitate  this  influence  of 
the  grass  we  have  to  employ  only  one  colour  stuff 
from  which  atmospheric  vibrations  of  similar  undula- 
tions proceed.  Unscientific  painters  were,  however, 
impressed  by  the  sham-scientific  jabber  of  Seurat, 
who  tried,  in  his  wonted  manner,  through  a  subse- 
quently discovered  theory,  to  convert  a  defect  of 
sight  into  an  advantage ;  and  they  applied  them- 
selves the  more  zealously  to  stippling  as  the  in- 
numerable specks  really  made  bright  a  twinkling, 
whirling  impression,  which  superficially  reminded  one 
of  the  vibration  of  hot  air  on  a  sunny  plain  at 
midsummer  noon. 

Only  superficially.  Pissarro  soon  discovered  that 
stippling  really  did  not  bring  more  light  into  his 
pictures,  and  he  gave  it  up.  He  resigned  the 
Seurat  method  to  rivals  who  rush  after  eccentricity 
because  they  hope  to  astonish  by  it,  and  to  whom 
a  style  of  painting  was  particularly  suitable,  which 
blurred  the  line  with  colour  and  saved  them  that 
tedious  drawing  that  always  gave  them  the  greatest 
affliction.  He  himself,  however,  returned  again  to 
the  honest  style  of  wielding  the  brush,  which  he 
had  learnt  of  his  great  masters. 

The  stippling  episode  of  his  life,  which  he  got 
over,  throws  light,  however,  on  the  painful,  funda- 
mental mistake  of  Pissarro  and  his  companions. 
They  wanted  to  paint  light,  and  by  that  wanted 
something  impossible,  for  light  is  not  to  be  represented 


On  Art  and  Artists 

by  colours  which  do  not  themselves  emit  light,  and 
are  neither  phosphorescent  nor  fluorescent.  All  that 
is  attainable  by  colour  is  awakening  the  reminiscence 
of  light,  and,  by  means  of  the  memory-picture 
illuminating  the  brain,  to  cheat  our  consciousness 
with  the  idea  of  a  directly  received  impression.  The 
very  great  masters  of  optical  landscape  painting 
soon  acknowledge,  or  feel,  that  the  brush  can  indeed 
conjure  forth  the  illusion  of  illumination,  but  is 
unable  to  paint  light,  and  they  turn  from  a  hope- 
less Sisyphus-task  to  create  pictures  of  mist  and 
dusk,  from  which  sunlight — a  thing  inimitable — is 
absolutely  banished.  The  most  instructive  example 
of  this  is  James  Whistler ;  but  he  who  does  not 
possess  the  instinctive  certainty  of  genius  will  not 
be  conscious  of  the  limitations  of  human  capacity, 
and  ever  rolls  the  round  stone  unweariedly  up  the 
mountain. 

Pissarro  would  have  saved  himself  many  hours  of 
tragic  quest,  struggle,  and  sense  of  powerlessness, 
had  he  known  or  recognised  the  primary  fact  which 
Friedrich  Hebbel  seized  in  his  theological  but  lucid 
epigram  : 

"  He  who  the  sun  has  created  will  ever  remain  quite  another 
Than  the  industrious  wight  who  for  us  prospects  shall  paint." 


144 


Triumph  of  Revolution— Whistler's  Psychology 


WHISTLER'S  PSYCHOLOGY 

"  Do  you  think,  prince,  that  Raphael  would  not 
have  been  the  greatest  genius  among  painters  if 
he  had  been  unlucky  enough  to  be  born  without 
hands?"  Lessing  makes  the  painter  Conti  say  to 
Prince  Gonzaga.  A  century  and  a  half  ago  that 
seemed  paradoxical,  and  was,  probably  on  that 
account,  one  of  the  most  quoted  maxims  of  Lessing's. 
It  has,  meanwhile,  experienced  the  fate  of  many 
paradoxes,  viz.,  become  a  commonplace.  Nowa- 
days, every  dabbler  in  psychology  knows  that  not 
arm  and  hand — i.e.,  execution — make  the  painter, 
but  his  optical  brain  centres,  i.e.,  his  sensitiveness 
to  impressions  of  sight,  his  specific  reactions  on 
colour  and  form.  One  is  a  born  painter — a  painter 
from  organic  necessity  and  natural  bent  preceding  all 
education — only  by  special  development  or  suscepti- 
bility of  this  centre. 

In  painting,  however,  there  are  two  elements  to 
be  kept  distinct — drawing  and  colour.  Both  these 
are  traceable  to  the  centres  of  sight,  but  they 
correspond  to  different  sensibilities.  Optical  centres, 
which  perceive  with  particular  keenness  and  delicacy 
the  distinctions  between  intensities  of  light,  are  the 
real,  organic  hypothesis  of  the  talent  for  drawing  ; 
for  what  we  perceive  with  the  eye,  without  the  aid 


On  Art  and  Artists 

of  the  senses  of  touch  and  muscle,  as  outline  or  form, 
is  purely  distinction  of  intensity  in  light.  Optical 
centres,  on  the  other  hand,  which  are  particularly 
sensitive  to  the  variations  of  undulations  of  light, 
form  the  basis  of  the  sense  of  colour  and  the  talent 
for  colouring.  As  a  rule  the  talents  for  drawing  and 
colouring  appear  coupled,  even  if  one  or  the  other 
preponderates,  for  highly  developed  or  particularly 
sensitive  optical  centres  are  naturally  receptive  beyond 
the  average  of  optical  impression  of  every  sort,  of 
differences  both  of  intensity  and  of  undulations  of 
light.  This  is,  however,  not  always  the  case,  and 
there  are  dry,  sharp  draughtsmen  without  sense  of 
colour,  and  some  who  revel  in  colour  without  the 
ability  to  grasp  the  idea  of  form  and  render  it 
plastically. 

In  a  brain  that  is  characterised  by  a  special 
morphological  or  functional  development  or  sensi- 
tiveness of  the  optical  centres,  this  dominates  all 
functions  of  the  brain,  especially  memory  and  associa- 
tion of  ideas.  The  entire  thinking  faculty  has  an 
optical  or  visual  character ;  it  stands  in  a  dependent 
relation  to  sight.  Memory  clings  almost  exclusively 
to  reminiscent  pictures  of  the  sense  of  sight, 
and  association  of  ideas  connects  mainly  pictures 
of  this  category.  Every  perception  of  form  calls 
up  in  the  consciousness  representations  of  form. 
The  fancy  is  "inwardly  completely  full  of  figures," 
as  Albert  Durer  quaintly  and  with  wonderful  intuition 

146 


Triumph  of  Revolution— Whistler's  Psychology 

expresses  it  in  his  "  Diaries."  The  world-picture 
of  this  brain,  always  disposed  to  intense  observation, 
is  neither  loud  nor  excited,  but  bright,  flashing, 
and  radiant  like  a  mosaic  work  of  precious  stones 
and  enamel.  All  the  inner  connections  between 
the  different  domains  of  the  brain  are  sharpened 
towards  the  optic  centres,  and  all  the  activities  of 
the  brain,  all  emotions,  all  processes  on  the  thres- 
hold of  consciousness  also  release  central  optical 
excitements. 

Whistler's  life-work  reveals  more  than  that  of  any 
other  artist  in  our  times  the  deep,  organic  primitive- 
ness  of  his  genius  as  a  painter.  We  can  observe 
in  him,  as  in  a  school  text,  the  psychology  of  the 
born  painter.  His  signature  is  at  once  a  fine 
example  of  the  association  of  ideas  on  the  part  of 
a  visionary.  It  consists,  as  everybody  knows  who 
has  seen  Whistler's  works,  of  a  butterfly  with 
evenly  outstretched  wings.  People  h.ave  insisted 
on  seeing  heaven  knows  what  symbol  in  this,  and 
have  consequently  sought  the  wildest  and  remotest 
explanations  of  it.  If  any  one  asked  the  master 
for  an  explanation,  he  laughed,  and  made  a 
mysterious  gesture  of  refusal.  It  gave  him  vast 
entertainment  to  see  his  admirers  tormenting  them- 
selves with  profound  attempts  at  interpreting  it. 
They  just  had  no  eyes ;  they  could  not  see.  The 
butterfly  is  nothing  but  the  first  letter  of  Whistler's 
name — a  big  W.  A  Gothic,  ornamental  W  with 

'47 


On  Art  and  Artists 

the  two  side  lines  bellied  out  and  a  bar  in  the 
middle  reminds  one  strikingly  of  a  soaring  butterfly 
with  its  cylindrical  body  between  its  outstretched 
wings.  The  definite  association  of  ideas  from 
similarity  of  form  made  Whistler,  as  he  painted 
the  W  of  his  signature,  think  of  a  butterfly,  and 
he  henceforward  formed  this  picture  that  was 
fuller  in  expression,  disregarding  the  original  letter, 
which  seemed  to  him  balder  and  more  meaning- 
less. The  butterfly  came  to  the  front  more  and 
more  as  the  W  went  further  and  further  back,  and 
it  is  possible  that  at  last  Whistler  himself  forgot 
the  point  from  which  he  started. 

Whistler  was,  when  he  liked,  in  the  front  rank 
as  a  designer  of  forms.  From  the  severe,  painfully 
upright  school  of  Gleyre  he  went  forth  a  master  of 
drawing,  as  of  the  outline  of  corporeality  of  three 
dimensions  seen  stereoscopically.  One  glance  at  his 
wonderfully  plastic  portraits,  especially  of  his  first 
period,  teaches  this  irrefutably ;  but,  on  the  whole, 
as  his  individuality  made  itself  felt,  he  neglected 
form  and  became  more  engrossed  in  colour.  In  the 
second  half  of  his  life  the  outlines  of  subjects  hardly 
any  longer  interested  him  at  all  ;  he  only  dwelt  on 
their  appearances  in  colour,  on  the  harmony  or 
discord  of  their  tones.  That  means  that  his  optical 
centres  were  much  more  sensitive  to  the  differences 
of  undulations  than  to  those  of  the  intensity  of  light. 
From  this  there  necessarily  resulted  a  contra- 

148 


Triumph  of  Revolution — Whistler's  Psychology 

diction  between  him  and  the  average  individuals 
which  was  not  to  be  got  over,  since  it  originated 
in  differences  in  the  constitution  of  the  brain.  He 
who  has  not  Whistler's  special  hyper-sensitiveness 
to  colour  is  simply  unable  to  see  things  as  the 
latter  saw  them.  He  can  just  as  little  imagine 
the  impressions  that  Whistler  feels  through  his 
sense  of  sight  as  perhaps  those  which  are  supplied 
to  a  hound  by  his  nose.  When  the  blissfully  but 
painfully  supersensitive  appreciator  of  colour  and 
the  dull  seer  of  outline,  i.e.,  the  perceiver  of  light, 
sought  to  explain  themselves  to  each  other,  inexpli- 
cable misunderstandings  were  bound  to  arise,  which 
make  his  celebrated  law-suit  with  Ruskin  an  excruci- 
atingly comic  jest.  Ruskin  appreciated  only  draughts- 
manship, his  mind  never  went  beyond  contour.  For 
him  a  picture  was  a  writing  that  should  express 
thoughts  and  feelings  in  the  most  concrete  form. 
He  demanded  that  it  should  be  a  definite  com- 
munication, reducible  to  plain  words,  as  of  a  narrative, 
a  record  of  travel,  or  a  treatise  on  natural  science. 
A  picture  that  differed  from  an  exact  representation, 
just  as  music  differs  from  articulate  speech  —  a 
picture  that  attempted  to  convey  only  a  general,  not 
a  concrete  stimulation  of  the  sight-centre  sensitive 
to  colour,  and  the  pleasurable  feeling  accompanying 
and  emphasising  it,  not  only  was  to  him  necessarily 
incomprehensible,  but,  as  he  was  a  dogmatist  of 
strong  feelings,  seemed  to  him  an  impertinence — 

149 


On  Art  and  Artists 

nay,  a  profligacy  and  personal  insult.  Ruskin's 
criticism  of  a  "  Nocturne  in  Black  and  Gold  "  was  a 
new  version  of  the  fable  of  the  stork  and  the  fox 
who  invited  each  other  in  turn  to  dinner,  improved 
to  the  point  of  libel.  It  was  childish  of  Whistler 
to  bring  an  action  against  the  angry-minded  art- 
inquisitor  who  required,  as  the  first  duty  of  a  painter, 
the  accuracy  of  a  geologist,  botanist,  or  engineer. 
He  should  not  have  expected  justice  from  judges 
who  saw  and  felt,  not  like  himself,  but  like  Ruskin. 
Judge  Huddleston  was  of  good  faith  when,  in  the 
immortal  trial — which  Whistler  himself  has  preserved 
for  posterity  in  his  charming  book,  "  The  Gentle 
Art  of  Making  Enemies" — he  exchanged  with  the 
artist  remarks  like  these  :  "  Which  part  of  the  picture, 
then,  really  represents  the  bridge?  Do  you  mean 
to  say  that  this  is  the  proper  representation  of  a 
bridge  ? "  (The  question  referred  to  "  Battersea 
Bridge  by  Moonlight")  "  I  had  no  intention  of 
giving  an  exact  copy  of  the  bridge."  "Do  these 
daubs  of  colour  on  it  represent  human  beings?" 
" They  represent  what  you  please."  "Is  that  thing 
under  there  a  boat? "  "  It  is  a  consolation  to  me  that 
you  recognise  it.  My  whole  object  was  only  to 
produce  a  definite  harmony  of  colours."  He  could 
hear  this  harmony  of  colours :  Ruskin  and  Judge 
Huddleston  could  not.  It  was  utterly  futile  to  try 
to  make  them  feel  it. 

His   peculiarity  of  giving   his   pictures   fine   and 
150 


Triumph  of  Revolution— Whistler's  Psychology 

pretentious  names,  such  as  "  Black  and  Gold,"  "  Blue 
and  Silver,"  "  Ivory  and  Gold,"  "  Purple  and  Gold  "  is 
also  generally  misunderstood.  People  read  "  Silver 
and  Blue,"  and  saw  indistinctly  intricate  brush-strokes 
of  blue  with  elevations  in  dead  white,  representing,  by 
way  of  indication,  the  high  seas  by  night  and  in  a 
mist.  People  hurried  to  the  picture  labelled  "  Ivory 
and  Gold,"  expecting  to  gaze  at  something  like 
an  ancient  chryselephantine  marvel,  or  a  Florentine 
masterpiece  of  splendour  belonging  to  the  days  of 
the  Medici,  and  what  did  they  find  ?  The  lightly 
executed  sketch  of  a  woman  in  a  yellow  and  white 
harmony,  in  which  one  looked  in  vain  for  the  costly 
materials  promised  by  the  title.  Not  Philistines 
alone  have  shaken  their  heads  over  this,  and  evil- 
disposed  critics  have  talked  of  hoaxing,  foppery, 
and  American  bluff.  They  have  wronged  the  artist 
bitterly.  He  was  absolutely  honest ;  his  optical  hyper- 
sensitiveness  felt  the  colour  with  so  heightened  an 
appreciation  of  tone  that  he  really  saw  gold,  silver, 
and  purple,  where  a  less  susceptible  sense  could  only 
see  dull  yellow,  deadened  white,  undecided  reddish- 
brown.  In  all  probability,  it  was  long  before  he 
realised  that  others  failed  to  observe,  in  the 
appearance  of  the  actual  things  and  his  pictures 
of  them,  the  rare  metals  and  precious  stones,  the 
pearls  and  ivory,  which  gleamed  from  them  to  him. 
The  common  phrase,  which  is  a  precipitate  of  the 
universal  thought  and  feeling,  speaks  of  sun-gold 


On  Art  and  Artists 

and  moon-silver.  Sun  and  moon  consequently  make 
such  a  strong  optical  impression  on  even  the  average 
man  that  he  thinks  of  gold  and  silver  with  the 
accompanying  higher  notes  of  ideas  of  splendour  and 
magnificence.  In  Whistler's  consciousness,  however, 
these  ideas  began  to  be  felt  with  gentle  excitations, 
as  whitish  foam  on  dark  waves  in  the  night,  or  a 
woman's  pale  complexion  in  cream-coloured  raiment 
yielded  them.  These  delicate  charms  affected  his 
sensitiveness  just  as  the  force  of  the  sun  or  moon 
affects  others.  In  maniacal  excitation,  of  which  the 
acutest  form  is  madness,  the  brain  of  the  sick 
person  becomes  so  supersensitive  that  it  reacts  on 
the  ordinary  impressions  of  the  senses  just  as  on 
intolerably  violent  irritations.  Moreover,  certain 
poisons,  of  which  hashish  is  the  best  known,  de- 
range the  central  nervous  system  into  a  condition  of 
supersensitiveness,  in  which  the  person  poisoned  feels 
himself  inundated  with  floods  of  light,  and  sees  a 
blinding  brightness  everywhere.  The  sensitiveness 
to  which  only  illness  or  poison  raises  the  average 
brain,  was  from  nature  the  peculiarity  of  Whistler's 
sight-centres.  He  was  conscious  that  in  certain 
respects  he  had  more  than  others,  and  he  felt  as 
superior  to  them  as  the  Indian  hunter  does  to  a 
pale  face  of  the  towns  on  a  game  -  beast's  track, 
which  the  latter  does  not  notice  at  all,  whilst  it 
gives  the  former  a  thousand  clear  indications.  As  an 
artist  he  was  amiably  modest,  as  a  man  amusingly 

152 


Triumph  of  Revolution— Whistler's  Psychology 

arrogant.  He  did  not  flatter  himself  on  his  work, 
but  on  his  finer  organisation,  i.e.,  that  he  was 
kneaded  out  of  better  dough  than  the  majority. 

His  supersensitiveness  is  expressed  not  only  in  his 
revel  of  colour ;  it  is  also  curiously  and  graphically 
revealed  in  the  impressions  which  he  feels  of  the 
appearance  of  women,  and  which  he  conveys  in  his 
best  portraits  of  women  with  an  intensity  no  longer 
restrained  within  physiological  bounds,  but  positively 
touching  on  the  morbid.  The  intensity  with  which 
he  feels  young,  high-bred,  nervous  women  has  quite 
an  uncanny  effect  on  me.  I  think  of  his  "  Lady 
Meux,"  and  other  capricious  femininities,  which  were 
exhibited,  in  the  last  fifteen  years,  in  the  Paris 
salons  and  in  London.  He  plants  his  model  before 
us  in  some  wonderful  position.  One  stands  with 
its  back  towards  us,  but  turns  its  head,  as  if  in  a 
sudden  caprice,  to  us.  Another  shows  us  its  full 
face,  and  looks  fascinatingly  at  us  with  pinched 
mouth  and  impenetrable  eyes  that  think  troublous 
thoughts.  These  perverted,  whimsical  beauties  wear 
remarkable  and  personal  toilettes  which,  except  the 
face  and  often  the  hands,  reveal  not  a  finger's  breadth 
of  skin,  yet,  in  spite  of  the  interposition  of  silk  and 
lace,  cry  out  for  the  fig  leaf.  They  are  bundles  of 
sick  nerves  that,  from  the  crowns  of  their  heads  to 
the  tips  of  their  fingers,  seem  to  thrill  with  Sadie 
excitement.  It  is  as  though  they  wanted  to  entice 
men  to  wild  attempts,  and  at  the  same  time  held 

153 


On  Art  and  Artists 

their  claws  ready  to  tear,  with  a  loud  cry  of  pleasure, 
the  flesh  of  the  daring  ones.  Everything  madly 
Maenadic,  or  inexorably  Sphinx-like,  that  Ibsen  was 
incapable  of  incarnating  convincingly  in  his  Hedda 
Gabler  speaks  distinctly  from  Whistler's  female 
portraits. 

They  have  become  typical — typical  for  copying 
painters  who  exaggerate  his  neurotic  women  into 
the  pornographic ;  typical  for  hysterical  women,  to 
whom  they  suggest  poses  and  psychological  states. 
Felicien  Rops  perhaps  owes  him  nothing,  although 
often  enough  his  female  demons  seem  Whistler- 
portraits  divested  of  clothing  ;  he  has,  from  analogous 
organic  hypotheses,  independently  attained  to  analo- 
gous conceptions  of  woman  ;  but  Zorn's,  Boldini's, 
Alexander's  women  point  to  Whistler's  demoniacs. 
The  woman  of  a  given  epoch  likes  to  form  herself 
on  the  ideal  which  the  art  and  poetry  of  the  time 
give  of  the  "  interesting  "  woman.  Thus  Whistler,  by 
means  of  his  female  portraits,  became  an  educator 
of  the  aesthetically  superfine  woman  of  the  present 
day ;  but  Whistler,  as  an  educator  of  woman,  is 
to  me  incomparably  less  sympathetic  than  Whistler, 
the  delicate  appreciator  and  symphonist  of  colour. 


'54 


VIII 


THE  house  in  which  Gustave  Moreau  spent  the 
seventy-seven  years  of  his  life  (1826-98)  has  been 
turned  into  a  museum  which  contains  nearly  all 
his  life's  work,  according  to  the  catalogue  1132 
items,  from  the  copies  and  sketches  of  his  youth, 
through  the  great  finished  paintings,  down  to  the 
promising  sketches,  unfulfilled  promises,  of  his  old 
age.  This  collection  falls  little  short  of  being 
complete.  Perhaps,  with  the  sole  exception  of 
the  incomparably  less  interesting  VVierz,  there  is  no 
contemporary  artist  less  often  met  with  in  public 
and  private  galleries  than  Gustave  Moreau.  He 
never  sold  his  pictures,  for  he  was  lucky  enough 
not  to  be  obliged  to  do  so  ;  and,  in  the  time  of  his 
maturity,  he  did  not  exhibit,  for  he  shunned  contact 
with  men  who  were  strange  and  unfamiliar  to  him. 
He  who  wishes  to  get  to  know  him  must,  then,  not 
shirk  a  pilgrimage  to  his  house,  which  he  inherited 
from  his  parents,  inhabited  by  himself,  and  left  as 

155 


On  Art  and  Artists 

an  unencumbered  legacy  to  his  native  town.  And 
the  journey  will  be  found  worth  the  trouble,  for 
Gustave  Moreau  is  a  curious  phenomenon,  affecting 
to  melancholy  and  depressing,  at  least  for  men 
enamoured  with  life  and  action,  but  nevertheless  full 
of  mysterious,  strangely  pathetic  allurement,  even 
for  those  who  prefer  to  breathe  in  air  and  sunshine 
under  a  bright  sky. 

Gustave  Moreau  stands  apart  from  the  mighty 
procession  of  French  art  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
which  was  headed  by  the  classic  cohort,  continued 
by  the  powerful  band  of  the  knights  and  squires  of 
romanticism,  and  then  unrolled  itself  before  our  eyes, 
in  the  legion  of  the  bourgeois  National  Guard  of 
Philistine  academic  routine-art,  in  the  blouse-wearing 
troop  of  Realists,  and,  lastly,  in  the  vacillating  and 
oscillating  sun-flower  groups  of  Symbolism.  He  is 
not  to  be  classed  in  this  line  of  development.  He 
went  his  way  alone,  deaf  to  the  strains  of  the  world 
of  which  he  heard  only  those  with  which  he  him- 
self was  in  harmony  from  the  beginning.  He  had 
some  few  kindred  spirits  among  contemporary 
painters,  but  he  did  not  know  them,  and  they 
did  not  know  him  either,  and  they  exercised  no 
influence  on  each  other,  but  grew  up  independently 
of  one  another  from  the  same  conditions  of  like 
temperaments  and  peculiar  moods  that  in  the  middle 
decades  of  the  nineteenth  century  dominated  narrow, 
exclusive  circles,  without  being  characteristic  of  this 

156 


Gustave  Moreau 

or  any  other  time.  For  these  temperaments  are 
purely  subjective,  and  accord  with  the  external  only 
so  far  as  civilisation,  when  it  has  reached  a  certain 
grade  of  intensity  and  artificiality,  always  produces 
men  with  widely  preponderating  development  of 
fancy,  who  are  continually  looking  into  their  inner 
selves,  and  cannot  withdraw  their  eyes  from  the 
fascinating  spectacle  of  the  wonderful  events  being 
enacted  therein. 

Moreau  was  just  such  a  visionary.  Remote  from 
life,  remote  from  actuality,  he  ever  remained 
engrossed  in  his  dream,  and  his  noble  art  served 
him  to  retain  his  apparently  multifarious,  but, 
in  reality,  little  changing  dream  -  pictures.  His 
museum  is,  then,  a  world  by  itself,  with  which  the 
objective  outer  world  has  no  more  in  common  than 
have  dreams  and  ravings  with  pictures  of  the  actual 
which  serve  them  as  a  stimulus,  and  furnish  them 
with  the  elements  of  their  subjective  combinations. 

Since  the  earliest  stages  of  development  of  the 
spiritual  life  there  have  existed,  side  by  side  with 
men  of  observation  and  action,  thinkers  and  dreamers 
who  turn  away  from  actualities,  and  build  up  around 
them  a  world  of  ideas  which  their  excessively 
developed  power  of  imagination  could  fashion,  and 
endow  with  romantic  life  according  to  their  own 
inclination  and  necessities.  Thus  arose  all  symbols, 
mythologies,  fables,  and  superstitions  that  were 
enshrined  in  folk  -  lore,  traditions,  and,  more 

157 


On  Art  and  Artists 

especially,  in  all  arts.  Civilisation  brings  with  it, 
by  this  means,  besides  its  recognition  of  nature,  a 
world  of  shadows  invented  by  men  freely — even  if 
according  to  fixed  psychological  laws — like  a  ghostly 
double,  the  astral  body  of  the  real  world  ;  and  our 
prescriptive  education,  which  comprises  in  itself  more 
aesthetic  than  positively  scientific  ingredients,  renders 
us  all  double  citizens  of  the  real  and  the  imaginary 
world.  The  majority  of  us  chiefly  live  in  the  former, 
and  visit  the  latter  only  in  rare  moments,  which  to 
some  mean  only  recreation,  but  to  others  consecra- 
tion and  exaltation.  A  small  minority,  however, 
renounce  their  citizenship  of  the  actual  world  and 
withdraw  wholly  to  the  world  of  imagination,  which 
has  been  conjured  up  by  the  artistic  fancy  of  man- 
kind in  thousands  of  years  of  creative  activity. 

Moreau  was  a  citizen  of  the  shadow-world,  wherein 
he  spent,  an  eternal  Phaeacian  Sunday,  and  he  never 
grew  weary  of  lingering  over  its  beauties.  We 
learn  by  his  representations  to  know  it  thoroughly 
in  all  its  parts.  Its  landscapes  are  curiously  jagged 
rocks  which  seem  to  be  formed  of  corals ;  chalk 
plains  with  moon-glimmering  reflections ;  mountain 
steeps  in  cumulous  clouds ;  lakes  and  seas  of  oil, 
opalescent  or  charged  with  indigo.  The  animals 
that  people  this  hypnotising  paradise  are  unicorns 
with  silvery  coats,  amazing  dragons  that  are  too 
curly  to  inspire  fear,  milk-white  flying-horses,  seven- 
headed  hydras  standing  bolt  upright  on  the  tips 

158 


Gustave  Moreau 

of  their  tails,  Stymphalian  birds  with  women's  faces, 
sphinxes,  chimaeras,  and  phoenixes.  Even  the 
flamingos,  which  come  nearest  to  the  terrestrial 
fauna,  are  here  with  the  tips  of  their  wings  dipped, 
as  it  were,  in  blood,  immeasurably  more  oddly 
pathetic  than  we  know  them.  The  flora  exhibits 
(besides  monumental  marvels  of  Peru,  which  remind 
one  of  the  rose  windows  in  Gothic  cathedrals) 
a  "  mystic  blossom,"  a  somewhat  calla-like  creation 
that  sprouts  forth  from  a  luminous  rock  in  the 
blue,  mirroring  mere,  and  on  its  slender  summit, 
between  great  high  leaves,  bears  the  Blessed  Virgin 
surrounded  by  a  dazzling  halo.  The  spiritual 
beings  that  move  amidst  these  marvellous  animals 
and  plants,  are  gods,  heroes,  and  poets :  Tyrtaeus, 
Orpheus,  Hesiod,  Sappho,  Jason,  Helena,  Odysseus, 
Penelope,  Pasiphae,  Hercules,  Dejanira,  CEdipus, 
Jupiter,  Apollo,  the  Muses,  Semele,  Leda,  Europa, 
Prometheus,  the  Oceanides,  Moses,  Buddha,  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Good  Samaritan ;  the  acts  or,  more 
correctly,  the  states  in  which  these  gods,  demi- 
gods, and  genii  are  represented  are  taken  from  all 
mythologies  and  theogonies.  Every  mysticism  that 
has  at  any  time  or  place  arisen,  like  a  silver  haze, 
from  the  chaotic  brain  of  man,  has  found  admittance 
into  Moreau's  soul  and  flows  up  and  down  in  it  in 
changing  pictures.  As  to  orthodoxy  of  any  sort 
or  kind,  he  is  quite  unconcerned.  His  mind,  when 
stirred,  clings  with  the  same  delicacy  to  the  saint 

159 


On  Art  and  Artists 

of  every  origin,  and  he  kneels,  like  the  large-hearted 
heathen  of  antiquity,  at  the  threshold  of  the  most 
varied  realms  of  divinity.  The  Pallas  Athene  in 
the  hall  of  the  king's  palace  at  Ithaca,  who  enjoys 
the  massacre  of  the  suitors,  is  formed  after  the  same 
type  as  the  Blessed  Virgin  of  the  "  mystic  blossom  "  ; 
hovering  in  long,  trailing,  white  garments,  radiant 
with  a  halo,  ecstatic  in  look  and  mien  and  the 
clasping  of  her  hands.  The  statues  of  the  Chaldaean 
gods  in  the  triumph  of  Alexander  the  Great  imitate 
hieratic  repose,  and  the  Eastern  posture  of  the  Buddha- 
Amina  statues.  Prometheus  on  the  Caucasian  peak, 
palpitating  beneath  the  vulture's  beak,  is  allied  by 
a  family  likeness  to  Christ  scourged  at  the  pillar. 
Jason  on  the  poop  of  the  Argo,  and  the  fair  man 
among  the  "  Three  Magi  from  the  East,"  are  cast  in 
the  same  mould.  Moses,  looking  down  from  the 
frontier  hill  on  the  blue  plains  of  Canaan,  and  the 
great  Pan,  gazing  at  the  spectacle  of  the  procession 
of  the  spheres,  seem  brothers.  Jupiter,  with  Semele 
on  his  bosom  melting  away  with  its  heat,  has  the 
unapproachable  sublimity  of  the  canonical,  the 
orthodox  God  the  Father.  For  Moreau  there  are 
no  dead  religions ;  with  a  humble  shyness  and  feel- 
ings of  awe,  he  approaches  all  that  has  ever  been 
reverenced  by  man. 

Moreau's  transcendental  imaginations  necessarily 
reveal  themselves  to  the  senses  in  other  colours,  as  in 
other  forms  than  those  familiar  to  us  by  experience. 

160 


Gustave  Moreau 

An  eerie  light  fills  his  pictures  with  the  shimmering 
radiance  of  mother-of-pearl.  The  rarest,  and,  there- 
fore, as  jewels,  the  most  treasured  exceptional  forms 
of  the  planetary  world  are  the  material  of  which 
everything  in  these  pictures  consists ;  the  build- 
ings are  of  gold  and  precious  stones ;  there  is  a 
twinkle  of  rubies,  sapphires,  and  emeralds  every- 
where. Moreau's  amazing  art  produces  from  his 
palette  of  oil-colours  effects  that  lie  far  outside  its 
technique ;  they  are  huge  Limoges  plates  with  rivers 
of  transparent  enamel ;  paintings  on  glass  with  sun- 
illumined,  jewel-like  fragments  of  colour ;  Byzantine 
mosaics  of  bits  of  lapis  lazuli,  jasper,  and  cornelian. 
With  this  palette  certain  Quattrocentists  such  as 
Mantegna,  certain  Flemish  artists  as  Van  Eyck  and 
Roger  van  der  Weyden,  as  also  Holbein,  have  in 
their  pictures  produced  a  small  number  of  beauty- 
spots.  No  one  prior  to  Moreau  has  painted  big 
pictures  entirely  with  it. 

The  first  impression  received  from  the  Moreau 
Museum  is  that  of  having  entered  an  enchanted 
castle,  which  has  about  it  something  of  the  treasure 
cave  of  the  mountain  sprites,  something  of  the 
palace  of  the  Elf-queen,  as  we  know  them  from  the 
"  Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  and  German  folk- 
stories.  And  if  we  have  tarried  longer,  and  our  eyes 
have  grown  accustomed  to  the  ripple  of  pearls  and 
precious  stones,  of  enamel  and  gold,  we  are  astonished 
at  the  strange,  weird  stiffness  and  stillness  of  all  these 

161  L 


On  Art  and  Artists 

splendid  creatures,  and  really  feel  we  are  surrounded 
by  ghosts  and  spectres  that  have  assumed  only  in 
pretence  the  guise  of  men. 

Moreau  formed  his  views  on  Baudelaire's  rules. 
In  the  rooms  of  his  museum  we  fancy  we  are 
looking  at  a  series  of  book  -  illustrations  for  the 
Fleurs-du-mal. 

"  Je  hais  le  mouvement  qui  deplace  les  lignes, 
Et  jamais  je  ne  pleure  et  jamais  je  ne  ris." 

"  I  hate  the  movement  which  displaces  the  lines, 
and  never  do  I  weep  and  never  laugh  "  would,  as  an 
inscription  above  the  entrance,  most  fittingly  convey 
in  words  the  main  feature  of  Moreau's  art.  For 
nearly  all  his  pictures,  but  most  of  all  for  the 
"  Triumph  of  Alexander  the  Great,"  "  Penelope's 
Suitors,"  and  the  "  Daughters  of  Thespius,"  the 
verses  of  the  Paris  Dream  would  suit  as  a 
deliberate  description. 

"J'avais  banni  de  ces  spectacles 
Le  vegetal  irregulier 

Babel  d'escaliers  et  d'arcades, 
C'etait  un  palais  infini, 
Plein  de  bassins  et  de  cascades 
Tombant  dans  Tor  mat  ou  bruni. 

C'etaient  des  pierres  inouies 

Et  sur  ces  mouvantes  merveilles 
Planait.  .  .  . 
Un  silence  d'eterniteV' 
162 


Gustave  Moreau 

This  silence  d'eternite  is  the  characteristic  of  Moreau's 
art.  Here  nothing  moves ;  all  is  as  stiff  as  Lot's 
wife  after  she  was  turned  into  a  pillar  of  salt, 
as  the  men  in  the  fairy-tale  after  the  wizard  has, 
by  a  wave  of  his  magic  wand,  made  the  warm 
life  stagnate  in  their  veins.  Moreau  succeeds  in 
reversing  Pygmalion's  miracle.  His  brush  takes  the 
life  out  of  every  human  body  he  paints,  and  turns 
it  into  a  statue.  In  none  of  his  figures  do  we  feel 
that  he  painted  from  a  model.  They  all  give  the 
impression  of  being  copies  from  statuary,  and  we 
are,  for  instance,  not  surprised  that  his  manifestly 
unfinished  "  Moses  Looking  at  the  Promised  Land  " 
has  a  long  bearded  head  as  white  as  marble  on 
an  almost  flesh-coloured  body.  We  assume  that 
Moreau  has  here  simply  reproduced  the  natural 
colour  of  his  stone  prototype.  Among  all  his 
thousand  works,  one  alone  has  really  struck  me  as 
having  something  like  a  stir  of  passion  traceable, 
viz.,  his  "  Messalina."  The  abominable  empress, 
slave  of  her  animal  passions,  is  ascending  the  dirty 
couch  at  a  den  in  the  Suburra.  The  young  vulgarian 
whom  she  has  beckoned  to  her  clasps  her  waist 
with  both  arms ;  the  attendant  torch-bearer  of  the 
crowned  slut  turns  her  head  away  from  the 
repulsive  sight.  One  can  very  well  understand 
the  movement  of  this  slave  who  is  ashamed  of 
her  mistress,  but  has  only  to  obey  and  hold  her 
tongue.  The  eagerness,  too,  with  which  the  youth 

163 


On  Art  and  Artists 

kneeling  before  the  couch  creeps  up  to  the  body  that 
is  offered  him,  is  true  and  warm.  Here  is  real  life, 
even  if  in  one  of  its  lowest  manifestations.  But 
Messalina  herself,  though  the  protagonist  of  this 
tragedy  of  Caesarean  madness,  is  again  entirely 
Moreau.  With  her  stony  repose  in  a  situation 
with  which  it  is  so  inconsistent,  with  her  Assyrian 
fish-bladder-eyed  profile,  she  resembles  an  idol  in 
a  Babylonian  temple,  and  one  wonders  how  the 
passion  of  the  favoured  one  can  endure  the  icy 
coldness  gleaming  from  this  idol. 

His    temperament    indicated    to    him,    from    his 
earliest   awakening  to   artistic    impulse,   the    course 
of  his   education,  just    as   it   did,   later,   the   choice 
of  his   material.     As   a  youth   in    Italy  he    copied 
Pompeian  mural   paintings  with   fervour,   and   later 
revelled  at  the  sight  of  the   Quattrocentists.     Here 
he  recognised  at  first  sight  kindred  souls  ;    here,  as 
it  were,   his    blood    spoke.     He   tries,   by   imitating 
them  piously,  to  keep  them  for  reminiscences  later 
on.     His   mystic  bent  to  the  old,  the  obsolete,  the 
risen   as   from   a   grave,   is   a   trait   connecting  him 
with    the    Prse  -  Raphaelites,   who   were    almost   his 
contemporaries.      With    them   he    has    in    common, 
too,  the  uncommonly  exact  and  accurate  technique. 
He   is   a   cold   but  unerring  draughtsman.     All  his 
accessory  work,  his   architecture,  ornaments,   imple- 
ments,  and   clothing,  are   marvels   of  archaeological 
learning    or,     when    this    fails,    of    invention     and 
patiently,   painfully   achieved   execution.      His   con- 

164 


Gustave  Moreau 

scientiousness  went  so  far  that  he  painted  perhaps 
twenty  or  more  far  advanced  sketches  of  each 
detail  of  his  large  compositions  ere  he  proceeded 
to  the  main  work,  and  this,  nevertheless,  he  often 
left  unfinished,  because  he  felt  he  had  not  done 
enough  to  satisfy  his  conscience. 

Those  empty,  or  merely  vaguely  filled-in  spots 
instead  of  faces  in  big  pictures,  in  which  all  besides 
— the  patterns  of  the  garment  stuffs  and  carpets, 
the  decorations  on  the  splendid  vases,  the  finery, 
weapons,  capitals  of  the  pillars  —  are  precisely 
rendered  as  complete  productions,  give  suddenly 
to  the  sympathetic  an  idea  of  the  pains  of  this 
struggling  spirit.  Moreau  shunned  life,  which  was 
too  stormy,  noisy,  and  bustling  for  his  morbid 
need  of  repose  and  quiet,  but  it  did  not  cease  to 
attract  him  as  a  mysterious  riddle.  He  would 
gladly  have  understood  it,  comprehended  it,  and 
held  it  fast,  but  he  had  to  admit  to  himself  that 
he  was  powerless  to  reach  it.  A  homunculus 
artificially  generated  in  the  retort,  he  can  live  only 
in  his  glass  vessel,  and  must  die  if  he  ventures  out 
of  it ;  but  through  his  prison  walls  he  gazes  at  the 
great,  broad,  free  nature,  replete  with  tempestuous 
life,  and  in  the  cold  of  his  glassy  den  he  shudders 
with  longing  for  this  world,  so  near  and  yet  beyond 
his  reach.  His  longing  is,  however,  never  to  be 
appeased ;  he  will  never  feel  the  joys  of  the  warm 
breath  of  life. 


165 


IX 
EUGENE    CARRIERS 

How  much  better  off  are  painters  and  art-lovers 
nowadays  than  in  earlier  times !  Formerly,  if  you 
wanted  to  enjoy  a  picture  you  had  to  own  it ;  if 
you  wished  to  know  a  picture  you  were  obliged 
to  make  a  journey  to  it.  If  you  liked  an  artist 
sufficiently  to  wish  to  surround  yourself  with  his 
chief  creations,  or  the  whole  of  them,  you  had  to 
have  unlimited  wealth  and  set  up  a  gallery  of  your 
own.  Copies  are  a  mere  aid  to  remembrance,  and 
not  a  good  one  either.  Executed  by  a  dauber, 
they  are  worse  than  nothing ;  by  a  gifted  artist, 
they  give  the  copyist's,  not  the  original  creator's, 
personality.  The  older  methods  of  multiplication 
also  either  furnish  clumsy  attempts  at  transmitting 
them,  or  they  are  peculiar,  independent,  artistic 
creations  of  another  order  than  painting,  which  have 
their  special  beauty,  but  are  unable  to  seize  the 
most  inward  and  subtle  of  the  charms  the  painting 
possessed. 

Since   the    latest    developments    of    photography 
and   the   copying    processes    dependent    on    it,   the 

166 


Eugene  Carrtere 

case  has  been  altered.  If  you  would  convince  your- 
self of  the  almost  marvellous  perfection  with  which 
oil-paintings  are  transferred  to  paper  nowadays,  so 
that  every  stroke  of  the  brush,  however  fine,  every 
movement  of  the  painter's  hand,  every  paste,  every 
unevenness  in  the  colour  plane,  every  effect  of 
the  canvas,  ground-coating,  and  varnish,  is  repro- 
duced in  a  life-like  way,  and  you  have  actually 
before  your  eyes  the  whole  personal  work  of  the 
artist,  then  look  at  the  handsome  folio  entitled : 
L'ceuvre  de  E.  Carriere,  Texte  de  Gustave  Geffroy, 
that  has  been  published  in  Paris  by  H.  Piazza  et 
Cie.,  and  contains  the  copy  of  150  paintings  and 
sketches  by  Carriere,  75  of  which  have  been  printed 
on  Bristol  paper,  and  75  incorporated  in  the  text. 
They  lack  colour,  I  admit.  Only  when  photography 
renders  this  too,  will  the  last  word  of  genuineness  in 
copying  be  pronounced.  Meanwhile,  we  must  be 
contented  that  we  find  again  in  the  photograph 
the  tonality  of  the  colours  and  the  effects  of  light 
and  shade  in  the  original  relatively  graded  in 
respect  of  each  other.  With  Carriere,  however,  the 
absence  of  colour  is  really  of  little  importance,  for 
he  painted  chiefly  from  a  grey  and  brown  palette, 
which  can  be  very  accurately  reproduced  by  means 
of  photography. 

A  hundred  and  fifty  Carrieres !  Who  could  pride 
himself  on  possessing  such  a  treasure?  One  would 
have  to  be  an  American  multi-millionaire  to  enjoy 
such  an  aesthetic  satisfaction  as  that.  Now  it  is 

167 


On  Art  and  Artists 

within  the  reach  of  every  well-to-do  individual. 
The  150  reproductions  comprise  about  the  whole 
of  the  great  artist's  life-work  up  to  now.  They 
disclose  to  every  beholder,  who  is  of  good  faith  and 
possesses  a  sensibility  for  the  beauties  of  painting, 
the  key  to  the  law  of  art  which  Carriere  laid  down 
for  himself.  They  render  it  possible  to  follow  the 
course  of  his  development,  which,  at  the  beginning, 
is  hesitating,  then  becomes  decided  and  weighty, 
and  carries  the  artist  from  the  school  to  mastership, 
from  tradition  to  uncompromising  individuality. 

Eugene  Carriere  was  born  on  I7th  January  1849, 
in  the  village  of  Gournay  (Seine-et-Marne).  His 
father  was  a  Fleming  from  the  north  of  France ; 
his  mother  an  Alsatian.  His  appearance  corresponds 
to  this  probably  pure  Germanic  origin.  He  is  a  big, 
broad  man  with  strong  bones  and  portly  stoutness ; 
white-skinned,  blue-eyed,  and  fair-haired ;  slow  of 
speech,  thoughtful  and  reserved  in  his  movements ; 
dreamy  when  listening,  unintrusive  when  silent, 
raising  his  voice  little  when  saying  modest,  sensible 
words  about  things  which  he  understands.  He  was 
still  a  child  when  his  parents  settled  in  the  mother's 
home.  He  grew  up  in  Strassburg,  and  was  intended 
for  an  artisan.  When  he  was  eighteen  he  went  to 
St  Quentin,  and  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  the 
La  Tours  in  the  museum  there.  His  talent  was 
kindled  by  this  unsurpassed,  perhaps  unequalled 
master.  The  beautiful  crayon  faces  of  La  Tour 
taught  him  to  feel  the  velvety  splendour  of  youthful 

1 68 


Eugene  Carrifere 

human  skin,  and  meditate  on  the  mystery  of  the 
artistic  creation  of  plastic  effects  through  merely 
intensifying  or  subduing  the  play  of  light.  He 
began  to  draw  and  paint  eagerly,  and  aroused 
sufficient  belief  in  his  vocation  to  be  sent  to  Paris 
to  the  Academy  of  Art.  What  it  offered  him  was 
practically  nothing.  Drawing  copies  of  plaster 
models  chilled  him ;  even  the  professional  life- 
model  in  the  prescribed  studied  attitudes  seemed 
to  him  futile  and  absurd.  What  meaning  for  him 
had  this  comedy  of  gladiatorial  positions,  ostentatious 
muscular  development,  clownish  distortions  expres- 
sive of  no  natural  feeling  or  rational  purpose,  in 
which  no  human  being  would,  if  left  to  himself, 
indulge,  and  which,  often  enough,  the  body  can 
assume  and  retain  only  by  the  artificial  help  of  rests 
and  props  ?  What  he  longed  for  was  life,  warm  life, 
such  as  pulsates  in  men  of  strong  feelings,  and  is 
expressed  by  them  in  a  straightforward,  convincing 
way  by  looks  and  gestures. 

The  depression  produced  in  him  in  the  pupil- 
rooms  in  the  Ecole  dcs  Beaux  Arts  made  him 
doubt  himself.  Luckily  for  him,  amidst  his  general 
ill-luck,  this  spiritual  crisis  of  his  coincided  with  the 
great  crisis  of  his  country.  The  war  broke  out,  and 
Carriere  hastened  as  a  volunteer  to  the  front.  He 
did  his  duty  bravely  in  several  battles  and  engage- 
ments, was  taken  prisoner  at  Sedan,  and,  as  such, 
reached  Dresden.  The  months  of  his  imprisonment 
proved  decidedly  fruitful  to  him,  for  he  spent  his 

169 


On  Art  and  Artists 

days  in  the  picture  gallery,  and  was  shown  by  the 
Rubens  pictures  there,  the  ways  which,  up  to  that 
time,  he  had  not  clearly  seen. 

After  the  war  was  over,  he  resumed  his  orthodox 
studies  at  the  Academy,  and  became  a  pupil  of 
Cabanel.  It  exhibits  a  good  testimony  of  the  power 
of  resistance  in  his  nature  that  this  most  inaccurate 
portrait-painter  of  the  Empire  could  not  influence 
him,  although  he  had  for  five  years  his  mislead- 
ing example  before  his  eyes.  In  1876  Carriere 
competed  for  the  prix  de  Rome.  He  did  not  get 
it.  That  might  have  been  predicted  to  him ;  the 
prize  is  the  reward  of  the  meritorious  industry  of 
the  pupil,  which  flatters  the  teacher's  amour  propre. 
Carriere  had  then,  however,  emancipated  himself  from 
tutelage  as  an  artist.  He  felt  nowise  humiliated  or 
cast  down  by  the  failure  of  his  purpose.  With  brave 
heart  he  drew  from  the  occurrence  the  only  true 
moral,  viz.,  that  not  the  approval  of  teachers,  i.e.,  of 
those  who  have  succeeded,  but  the  satisfaction  of 
his  artistic  conscience  must  henceforward  be  the  goal 
of  his  efforts.  He  renounced  official  recognition,  and 
that  was  wise,  for  it  preserved  him  from  the  pain 
of  disillusion.  From  1877  he  exhibited  annually  in 
the  Salon,  but  it  was  not  before  1884  that  the  prize 
judges  awarded  him  an  "  honourable  mention,"  which 
can  hardly,  however,  be  called  a  reward.  A  year 
afterwards,  he  received  the  medal  of  the  third  class, 
which  is  "the  last  kindness,"  but  at  the  same  time 
the  Baschkirtsew  prize  of  500  francs,  which  is 

170 


Eugene  Carrtere 

awarded,  not  by  the  prize-committee,  but  by  the 
Society  of  Artists  by  universal  suffrage.  In  1887  the 
Jury  rose  to  the  medal  of  the  second  class,  and,  at 
the  Universal  Exhibition  of  1889,  to  an  insignificant 
silver  medal.  With  this  the  series  of  distinctions 
vouchsafed  to  him  by  the  masters  of  his  guild  closes. 
His  later  honours — the  ribbon  and  rosette  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour,  the  room  reserved  for  his  works 
at  the  Universal  Exhibition  of  1900,  the  purchase 
of  his  "Maternal  Love"  for  the  Luxembourg 
Museum,  the  commission  to  paint  twelve  bays  in 
the  Banqueting  Hall  of  the  Paris  Hotel  de  Ville — 
were  forced  for  him  from  the  public  authorities  by 
independent  opinion.  They  were  the  scanty  revenue 
of  fame,  which  the  lonely  man  found  when  he  ceased 
to  seek  it.  It  is  characteristic  of  Carriere  that  of 
all  the  nonsense  of  medals  and  decorations  there  is 
not  a  word  to  be  found  in  the  monumental  work 
dedicated  to  him.  They  were  formerly  regarded  in 
France  as  the  great  events  in  the  life  of  an  artist. 
Carriere's  proud  independence  does  not  admit  that 
they  have  any  meaning  at  all,  or  deserve  the  most 
casual  mention.  The  book  enumerates  all  his  works, 
even  rough  drawings,  unfinished  sketches,  attempts 
at  lithography.  These  are  the  deeds  and  events  of 
his  life.  There  is  no  room  in  the  book  for  official 
certificates  of  industry  and  his  elevation  in  the 
Tchin}-  Moreover,  Carriere  was  one  of  the  co- 
founders  of  the  Salon  of  the  Champ  de  Mars  in 

1   Tchin  is  Russian  official  noblesse. 


On  Art  and  Artists 

1890,  which  on  principle  repudiated  the  system  of 
rewarding  meritorious  youths  by  testing  and  direct- 
ing superior  officers,  and  rebelled  against  turning 
artists  into  an  hierarchy  by  means  of  conventional 
marks  of  rank. 

Carriere  has  formed  a  manner  of  his  own,  which 
he  discovered  by  himself,  and  asserted  it  victoriously 
despite  of  all  kinds  of  opposition.  Every  layman 
sees  at  the  first  glance  that  his  pictures  are  full  of 
grey  vapour.  A  sometimes  transparent,  at  other 
times  thick  mist  envelops  his  figures,  and  makes 
their  different  parts  stand  out  with  unequal  distinct- 
ness. "  A  whim,"  exclaims  superficiality  ;  "  a  dodge 
to  astonish,"  grumbles  the  blast  man-of-the-world, 
who  thinks  himself  cunning.  It  is  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other.  The  origin  of  the  curious  exhalation 
hovering  about  his  figures  is  to  be  sought  in  his 
own  need  for  representing  the  aether  in  which  all 
planetary  life  is  displayed.  His  sense  of  truth  took 
umbrage  at  the  painting  in  vogue,  even  that  of  the 
masters,  which  sets  beings  and  objects  in  space, 
without  giving  any  suggestion  that  it  is  not  empty, 
but  filled  with  a  gas  possessing  optical  and  kinetic 
qualities.  It  is  all  very  well  trying,  by  established 
toning  of  the  local  colours,  and  blurring  of  the 
contour  lines,  to  make  the  fact  perceptible  that  the 
figures  are  surrounded  by  air ;  but  these  customary 
means  of  expression  failed  to  satisfy  Carriere,  and 
he  is  not  the  only  one  they  left  dissatisfied.  A 
whole  generation  of  painters,  about  1870,  had  the 

172 


Eugene  Carriere 

annoying  feeling  that  air  did  not  get  its  rights  in 
art,  and  made  obstinate  efforts  to  find  a  formula  for 
announcing  the  presence  of  air  with  an  emphasis 
that  could  not  be  neglected.  Sisley,  Monet,  Pissarro, 
thought  to  solve  the  problem  by  refraction  and 
iridescent  radiation  which  would  render  apparent  in 
the  painting  the  visible  motion  of  the  air,  its  vibra- 
tion under  definite  relations  of  illumination  and  heat. 
The  object  is  only  very  imperfectly  attained.  The 
attempt  is  justified,  and  deserves  respect.  Carriere 
sets  about  the  matter  differently,  in  a  more  direct 
and  naive  way.  The  decomposition  of  white  light 
into  its  spectrum,  as  the  dotters  and  stipplers 
practise  it,  proves,  I  admit,  that  the  rays  of  light 
move  in  a  material  medium,  as  they  would  otherwise 
have  no  reason  for  resolving  themselves  into  their 
component  parts ;  but,  in  order  to  infer  air  from  the 
prismatic  colours,  a  man  must  be  a  physicist,  and 
it  requires  a  labour  of  thought  that  has  nothing  in 
common  with  an  immediate  impression  of  the  senses, 
such  as  must,  first  and  foremost,  proceed  from  an 
optical  work  of  art.  Carriere,  then,  found  even  the 
impressionist  rule  too  learned.  He  preferred  simply 
to  exaggerate,  and,  as  it  were,  to  make  palpable, 
the  properties  of  air,  which  is  neither  absolutely 
colourless  nor  absolutely  transparent.  Thus  arose 
the  thin  grey  air  in  which  his  figures  are  bathed, 
ranging  from  the  most  delicate  mist  to  the  thickest 
smoke,  but  always  transparent. 

Directly  he  found  his  method  or  manner,  it  became 

173 


On  Art  and  Artists 

alive  in  his  hands.  In  that  his  peculiarity  consists, 
and  in  that  he  shows  himself  a  great  artist  by  the 
grace  of  God.  Smoke  is  to  him  a  medium  of 
expression  of  amazing  range.  He  employs  it 
almost  as  the  engraver  on  copper  of  mezzotint 
does  the  "  burr."  It  is  a  layer  of  veils  which  he 
diminishes  or  increases  as  the  effect  proposed 
demands.  Here  he  withdraws  the  covering.  There 
he  suffers  it  partly  or  entirely  to  remain,  and  by 
such  means  obtains,  by  the  most  natural  and, 
apparently,  the  least  troublesome  way,  a  recession  of 
the  non-essential,  an  amazing  relief  of  the  essential, 
a  clearness  in  the  expression  of  his  thought,  such  as 
not  one  of  his  contemporary  painters  possesses.  At 
the  first  glance  at  a  picture  of  Carriere,  one  is  very 
forcibly  directed  to  what  was  important  to  the 
painter.  One  positively  cannot  wander  into  what 
is  unimportant,  or  be  diverted  from  the  main  thing. 
It  sounds  paradoxical,  but  is  literally  true :  Carriere 
understood  how  to  make  vapour  the  medium  of  the 
highest  clearness,  to  make  mystery  the  gate  of  an 
unreserved  revelation.  That,  I  admit,  his  imitators 
cannot  discern  in  him.  It  is  easy  to  daub  smoke  in 
a  picture,  but  that  is  not  all.  Vapour  must  not 
be  an  excuse  for  bungling  draughtsmanship  ;  it  must 
not  mercifully  cover  defects  in  form.  In  order  not 
to  favour  any  fraud,  it  makes  a  masterly  accuracy  in 
modelling  a  primary  condition.  To  permit  oneself 
such  noble  economies  and  condensations  one  must 
be  as  accurate  a  draughtsman  as  Carriere.  The 

174 


Eugene  Carrifere 

veiling  of  the  greater  part  is  only,  then,  admissible, 
when  the  lesser  left  unveiled  is  perfect. 

The  subject  of  Carriere's  portrayal  is  always  life 
of  deep  feeling — self-forgetting  maternal  love,  child- 
hood's   gracious    innocence,    pathetic    tenderness    of 
father,  brothers,   or   sisters.     He   has   never  worked 
from   the  peddling  model  who  can  be  hired  at  five 
francs  an  hour,  and  who  poses  only  with  the  body, 
not  the  soul.     His  model  is  his  own  family,  with  the 
whole  range  of  idiosyncrasies  which  their  existence 
by    night    and    day    comprises.      What    the    tender 
husband  and  father  observed  with  delighted  eyes  at 
all   hours,  that   the   painter  has   uniquely   fixed   on 
canvas :  the  mother  resting  in  bed  with  her  baby  at 
her  breast ;  that  sweet,  shapeless  little  lump  of  human 
flesh  which  is  a  wee  boy  that  the  elder  sister  fondles ; 
the  children  eating  or  being  fed  at  table ;  the  washing 
and  dressing  of  the  little  one,  which  the  mother  and 
elder  sister  carry  out  as  a  pleasant  game  with  a  doll ; 
the  mother's  anxiety  as  she  cradles  the  fever-stricken 
child  in  her  arms,  and  tries  to  quiet  it ;  dressing  the 
eldest  girl   for  her  confirmation — a  prelude  to  that 
affecting  moment  when  the  mother,  with  trembling 
hands    and   streaming    tears,    will   place  the    bridal 
wreath  on  her  head ;  the  pride  of  the  parents  when 
marshalling  all  their  five  children  in  a  row;  the  gloomy 
seriousness  of  the  tiny  school-girl  puzzling  at   the 
work-table  over  her  first  task.     Carriere,  when  paint- 
ing his  family  life,  painted  the  life  of  mankind.     His 
large,  epic  style  of  feeling  preserved  him  from  falling 

175 


On  Art  and  Artists 

into  genre.  He  remained  monumental  even  when 
painting  details.  He  is  as  little  sentimental  as  Goethe 
in  "  Hermann  und  Dorothea";  nevertheless,  tears  rise 
when  we  gaze  on  his  pictures.  The  incident  disappears, 
and  we  stand  before  the  Eternal,  which  it  comprises ; 
before  Love,  which  keeps  the  world  together. 

The  same  feature  is  distinguishable  also  in  his 
portraits  ;  they  ennoble  the  model  by  spiritualising 
it.  He  gives  only  just  enough  of  the  anatomy  to 
reveal  the  soul.  And  when  he  sets  himself  greater 
and  more  highly  differentiated  tasks  ("The  Gallery 
of  the  Belleville  Theatre,"  the  "Holy  Women  at 
the  Foot  of  the  Cross"),  he  accomplishes  them  by 
bringing  forth  the  feelings  and  thoughts  which 
have  brought  together  the  persons  concerned,  and 
determine  their  bearings  and  movements. 

What  individual  works  scattered  in  exhibitions 
and  museums  have  not  proved  to  every  one  is 
made  indisputably  clear  by  the  150  reproductions  in 
the  Piazza  book,  viz.,  that  Carriere  is  one  of  the 
noblest,  chastest,  most  deeply-feeling  artists  of  to- 
day, who  has  created  for  himself  a  peculiar  technique, 
particularly  dangerous  for  imitators,  but  natural  to 
himself,  and,  therefore,  in  his  hand,  justified. 

SOME  OF  CARRIERE'S  PICTURES 

"The  Belleville  Theatre."  —  The  light,  mystic 
vapour  which  fills  and  exhales  through  Carriere's 
pictures,  like  delicate  bluish-white  clouds  of  incense, 

176 


Eugene  Carrtere 

does  not,  as  a  rule,  exert  a  disturbing  influence.  In 
this  picture,  quite  one  of  his  most  important  ones, 
his  brush  seems  to  have  betrayed  him.  He  has 
grown  more  material  than  is  usual  with  him.  The 
"  Belleville  Theatre "  is  so  densely  enveloped  in 
smoke  that  hardly  anything  can  be  distinguished 
amidst  the  clouds.  Yet  what  splendid  discoveries 
are  to  be  made  if  you  make  a  violent  effort  to 
penetrate  the  darkness,  into  which  a  venture  may 
only  be  made  with  a  diver's  helmet  and  an  air- 
pipe  !  We  see — or,  rather,  we  surmise — the  third 
and  a  part  of  the  fourth  gallery  of  the  People's 
Theatre.  The  suburban  audience  that  fills  these 
rows,  gives  itself  unrestrainedly  up  to  the  magic 
of  the  spectacle.  It  lives  not  its  own  life,  but 
that  of  the  heroes  in  the  piece.  To  this  audience 
Hecuba  is  everything.  The  wide-opened  eyes  lost 
in  reverie,  the  cheeks  sunk  sorrowfully  in  their 
hands,  the  shoulders  contracted  by  fear,  the  bodies 
almost  helplessly  leaning  on  one  another,  betray 
the  intensity  with  which  these  poor  people  have 
fled  out  of  themselves  into  illusion.  What  is  truth, 
what  is  deception,  if  a  poetical  word,  and  that, 
too,  most  likely  the  word  of  a  wretched  melodrama, 
can  snatch  away  small  trades-people  and  artisans — 
probably  sore  oppressed  by  the  needs  of  existence 
and  more  than  full  of  their  own  troubles — so  far 
from  all  their  griefs  that  they  forget  their  misery 
and  think  they  are  vividly  experiencing  a  new 
lot?  That  would  be  the  Buddha  philosophy  of  this 

177  M 


On  Art  and  Artists 

amazing  picture  if  we  could  but  distinguish  all  it 
contains.  Carriere  has  painted  the  profound  doctrine 
of  Maia  and  Nirvana.  It  is  a  pity  he  has  covered 
it  with  so  thick  a  veil  that  it  remains  impenetrable 
even  to  the  eyes  of  the  initiated. 

"Christ  on  the  Cross"  will  give  to  those  capable 
of  feeling  the  impression  of  a  great,  artistic 
experience.  The  mystical  tragedy,  from  which  a 
world-religion  draws  its  emotion,  is  presented  with 
the  simplicity  and  suppressed  pain  with  which  a 
father  reports  to  his  son  the  tragic  death  of  the 
mother.  All  subsidiary  work  that  might  prove 
distracting  is  avoided.  No  thieves,  no  Captain 
Longinus,  no  Roman  legionaries,  no  fanatical 
spectators ;  not  one  of  the  aids  in  men  or  things 
with  which  the  classics  of  painting  are  wont  to 
complicate  the  event  of  Calvary,  with  the  object 
of  making  it  more  impressive.  Nothing  save  the 
life-sized  figure  of  the  Saviour,  who  has  ended 
His  sufferings,  and  Mary,  who  leans  against  the 
Cross  so  as  not  to  break  down  altogether.  On 
the  face  of  the  corpse  the  peace  of  consummation 
has  sunk ;  unutterable  grief  wastes  that  of  the 
Mother.  The  form  floats  in  a  soft,  unearthly 
light ;  on  the  latter  expressive  shadows  strive. 
The  repose  of  the  dead  Christ,  which  would  appear 
painless  and  almost  cheerful  were  it  not  that  a 
slight  trait  of  suffering  was  fixed  around  the 
mouth,  dawns  like  a  consolation  over  the  dark 
despair  which  fills  the  soul  of  the  living  mother. 

178 


Eugene  Carriere 

If  she  suffers  humanly,  as  a  mother,  so  that 
she  would  fain  die  of  woe,  still  redemption  and 
exaltation  also  arise  for  her  from  the  act  of 
salvation.  If  one  has  ever  heard  Palestrina's 
"  Stabat  Mater,"  it  re  -  echoes  in  his  soul  at  the 
sight  of  Carriere's  picture.  It  has  issued  from  the 
same  deep  emotion  as  the  tear  -  soaked  terzine  of 
Jacopone  da  Todi  and  Palestrina's  sobbing  hymn. 
Carriere  abandons  himself  to  his  feelings  with  the 
same  earnestness  as  the  Franciscan  friar  and  the 
choirmaster  of  St  Peter's.  It  is  hard  for  me  to 
admit  that  he  shares  their  pious  belief.  I  assume 
that  the  Mother's  grief  has,  in  the  main,  inspired 
him.  This  strong  feeling  has,  doubtless,  made  him 
susceptible  of  the  sacredness  of  the  symbolism  in 
the  death  on  the  Cross ;  through  the  human  he 
will  have  raised  himself  to  an  inkling  of  the 
superhuman.  Let  us  not  forget  that  Carriere  is 
the  painter  of  that  "  Motherhood,"  the  gem  of 
the  Luxembourg  Museum,  which  depicts  a  young 
mother  with  a  child  on  her  lap  and  another  beside 
her,  revelling  in  the  sight  of  her  little  ones — her 
treasures  —  with  adorable  tenderness  in  look  and 
mien,  in  the  pose  of  her  body  and  the  movement 
of  her  arms.  Carriere  has  a  wonderfully  deep 
feeling  for  maternal  love,  in  joy  as  in  sorrow. 
Unconsciously  and  involuntarily,  he  has  conceived 
his  subject  not  with  the  spirit  of  a  believing 
Christian,  but  with  the  broken  heart  of  Mary.  He 
might  confidently  have  called  his  "Christ  on  the 

179 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Cross,"  too,  "  Maternity,"  like  his  masterpiece  in  the 
Luxembourg ;  the  one  is  a  companion-picture  of  the 
other ;  the  tragedy  of  maternal  love,  according  to 
its  idyl.1 

There  were  cases  in  which  the  employment  of 
Carriere's  plan  of  the  delicate  grey  veil  of  envelop- 
ing mist  was  not  successful.  I  have,  for  instance, 
been  obliged  to  make  reservations  in  respect  of 
his  "Theatre  in  Belleville."  In  the  "Christ  on 
the  Cross"  it  is  organically  developed  from  the 
subject.  The  veil  of  mist  shrouds  the  incident 
in  the  weird  twilight  which  is  the  prescribed 
atmosphere  of  miracle  and  the  mysteries  of  faith. 
Beyond  the  figures  in  the  foreground  of  the 
Crucified  and  the  Blessed  Virgin  we  divine,  in  the 
semi-dark  distance,  a  great  city,  at  the  back  of 
which,  on  the  horizon,  a  twinkling  white  light,  like 
the  still  uncertain  brightness  of  a  young  dawning 
day,  arises.  Our  powers  of  imagination  may  fill 
with  life  the  whole  of  this  profound  space  wherein 
dawn  is  at  odds  with  night — with  the  life  of  a 
whole  townsfolk  enjoying  their  revenge  or  weeping 
for  woe,  oppressed  with  foreboding  or  hopefully 
confident. 

Here  is  symbolism  in  that  high  sense  in  which 
every  true  work  of  art  is  symbolic.  The  picture  is 
at  the  same  time  intellectual  and  transcendental ; 
the  rationalistic  beholder,  who  neither  seeks  nor 
wishes  to  find  a  mystery,  has  before  him  the 

1  />.,  of  joy  or  suffering. 
1 80 


Eugfene  Carriere 

humanly  affecting  drama  of  the  mother  who  bewails 
her  son  who  has  died  unmistakably  in  a  noble  task. 
He  sees  sights  he  can  understand — the  peace  of 
death  and  a  mother's  deepest  pain — presented  with 
unsurpassable  truth.  He  enjoys  the  charm  of 
perfect  form,  marvellous  warmth  of  colour,  pro- 
duced with  the  simple  means  of  gouache  toning 
and  a  very  faint  heightening  by  touches  of  red, 
and  an  extremely  interesting  distribution  of  soft 
light  glimmering  from  the  dark  background.  The 
mystically  minded  beholder  sees  all  this,  and  he 
sees,  besides,  the  divine  element  in  the  Crucifixion 
and  the  sorrow-stricken  Mother,  the  terribly  threaten- 
ing subversion  of  the  natural  order  in  the  darkness 
brooding  over  the  city  and  fields,  and  the  promise 
in  the  light  arising  in  the  distance.  What  the 
rationalist  sees  in  the  work  of  art  is  sufficient  to 
arouse  his  feeling  and  admiration.  The  mystic's 
wonder  and  feeling  will  be  powerfully  strengthened 
by  religious  emotion. 

"  Portrait  of  my  Wife." — He  who  is  guilty  of 
the  error  of  confounding  gaudiness  with  coloration 
might  find  a  guide  in  this  work.  A  few  bright 
tones  in  the  spiritualised,  almost  transparent  face ;  a 
fur  collar  of  a  warm,  rich  brown ;  a  gay,  red  flower 
in  the  girdle,  comprise  all  that  Carriere  employs  as 
colour  media,  in  order  to  conjure  up  a  harmony  of 
lulling  melody  and,  at  the  same  time,  of  all  but 
hypnotising  intensity.  That  is  precisely  the  whole 
mystery  ;  it  is  not  a  question  of  the  noise,  but  of 

181 


On  Art  and  Artists 

the  harmony.  Three  colour  values,  chosen  with 
exquisite  taste,  placed  on  the  right  spot  in  the 
floating  white  and  pearl-grey  cloud  which  constitutes 
Carriere's  manner,  and  the  impression  of  the  colour 
mystery  is  produced  with  greater  success  and  depth 
than  by  a  palette  on  which  all  the  seven  colours 
of  the  rainbow  are  keeping  a  witch's  festival. 

"The  Kiss  before  Going  to  Sleep." — A  painting 
of  marvellous  range  of  feeling.  A  mother  with  her 
daughters,  from  the  grown-up  one  to  the  suckling 
infant  at  her  breast.  The  big  girl  bends  over  her 
mother's  shoulder,  as  the  latter  is  sitting,  and  takes 
her  good-night  kiss  from  the  lips  of  the  head  turned 
to  her.  The  baby  has  fallen  asleep  whilst  feeding 
at  the  maternal  bosom.  The  third,  half-grown-up, 
has  likewise  been  overcome  by  sleep,  as  she  leans 
helplessly,  with  her  whole  weight,  on  her  mother. 
The  last  twines  her  fondling  fingers  in  her  mother's 
hand  outstretched  to  her.  The  mother  is  the  central 
point  of  the  picture.  From  her  gushes  the  force 
that  penetrates,  encompasses,  attracts,  and  holds 
together  the  rest  of  the  figures.  Love  it  is  which 
collects  these  beings  and  unites  them  in  a  marvellous 
circle.  Thus  they  become  a  symbol  of  the  force  that 
has  built  up  the  universe  itself,  and  keeps  it  in  its 
eternal  order.  And  this  self-same  love,  which  knits 
these  hands  in  each  other,  bends  these  bodies  to 
each  other,  brings  these  lips  together,  which  is  visibly 
the  motive  and  attractive  force,  in  all  these  simple 
but  incomparably  eloquent  lines  of  movement,  has 

182 


Eugene  Carriere 

also  guided  the  magic  brush  capable  of  expressing 
so  great  a  theme.  He  who  at  the  sight  of  this  lofty 
work  does  not  feel  all  the  hardness  in  him  melting 
in  joy  stands  outside  humanity.  Moreover,  there  is 
not  a  trace  of  declamation,  or  purpose,  or  tremolo 
in  its  execution  ;  no  prettily  pietistic  rhetoric.  Not 
a  single  adjective,  but  only  neuter  substantives,  as 
in  Roman  inscriptions.  That  is  precisely  the  receipt, 
which  holds  good  in  all  times  and  in  all  places,  for 
monumental  works :  eternal  feelings  expressed  in 
eternal  forms. 

"The  Engaged  Couple,"  like  "Maternity,"  like 
his  portraits  of  a  married  couple,  a  young  maiden, 
etc.,  etc.,  are  unapproachable  works.  His  grasp  of 
the  essential  in  phenomena,  his  economy  of  form,  are 
of  supreme  craftsmanship.  It  is  in  this  direction,  I 
think,  that  the  future  development  of  painting  lies. 
It  will  soon  be  over  with  mere  transcription  of 
nature,  however  clever ;  certainly,  on  the  not  very 
distant  day  when  colour  photography  will  be  handed 
over  from  the  experimental  laboratory  of  the  physicist, 
to  professional  use.  Then  the  individual  stand- 
points of  observation  will  alone  hold  good.  People 
will  want  views,  not  as  the  mechanically  reproducing, 
dead  object-glass,  but  as  the  inspired  eye  of  the  artist 
sees  them.  Pictures  will  have  to  be  a  selection,  an 
interpretation,  an  emotional  excavation  of  the  optic 
phenomenon  ;  every  picture  an  anthology  of  vision  ; 
and  the  personality  of  the  artist  revealing  himself  in 
it,  will  be  the  fascination  of  his  work,  its  value  and 

183 


On  Art  and  Artists 

its  beauty.  Let  no  one  say :  "  These  are  trivialities. 
It  has  always  been  so  since  plastic  art  existed."  The 
plastic  artist  was  hitherto  always  in  the  first  place 
a  depictor.  His  soul  revealed  itself  only  discreetly  in 
his  works.  Carriere  goes  far  beyond  what  he  sees : 
he  paints  souls ;  he  paints  feelings.  In  his  repre- 
sentation the  inexpressible  becomes  an  incident. 
A  fugitive  movement,  a  pose,  a  line  of  head,  neck, 
shoulders,  or  hand  in  which  unconsciousness  is  mani- 
fested, when  self-control  is  relaxed  for  a  moment ; 
these  treacherous  means  of  expressing  mood,  which 
the  will  is  not  always  able  to  influence — these  are 
the  elements  with  which  he  works.  He  discloses 
the  impulses,  up  to  their  most  delicate  moods,  which 
are  the  causes  of  movements  and  deportment.  To 
such  a  spiritual  art  must  painting  be  developed. 
And  this  is  why  I  call  Carriere's  pictures  the  art 
of  the  future. 


184 


X 
PUVIS    DE    CHAVANNES 

Puvis  DE  CHAVANNES  is  dead,  and  his  influence 
is  dying ;  his  School  is  desolate,  and  I  see  now 
hardly  any  stragglers  worrying  themselves  to  paint 
with  his  palette  of  pale  moonlight.  So  it  is  no 
longer  necessary  to  attack  him.  It  is  enough  to 
explain  his  spiritual  transformation  and  his  successes. 
When  he  attained  the  maturity  of  his  powers, 
that  Naturalism  was  the  trump-card  in  painting, 
of  which  Bastian  Lepage's  abominable  "  Reaper," 
whose  brutalised  grimace  grins  at  the  visitor  to  the 
Luxembourg  Museum,  was  admired  as  the  highest 
achievement.  The  young  critic  had  eyes  only  for 
this  art.  The  multitude  dared  not  question  the 
fulsome  praise  squandered  on  the  works  of  the 
naturalists ;  but  their  inner  voice  was  not  mute. 
They  had  qualms  of  conscience  about  their  culpable 
cowardice,  and  were  quite  well  aware  that  naturalism, 
which  was  lauded  to  them  as  Progress  and  the 
Future,  was  in  reality  the  negation  of  all  art.  Then 
Puvis  de  Chavannes  stepped  forward  with  his  big 

185 


On  Art  and  Artists 

wall-paintings,  which  put  symbolism,  sacred  legend, 
and  history  on  the  stage,  on  a  literary  background, 
and  reunited  them  to  tradition,  which  had  been 
disowned  or  scoffed  at  by  naturalism,  out  of  barbaric 
ignorance  or  vulgar  arrogance.  The  multitude,  whose 
inward  feelings  partisan  criticism  outraged,  turned 
forthwith  to  the  painter  who  seemed  to  them  a 
deliverer  and  an  avenger.  He  was  a  living  protest 
against  the  art  of  the  vulgar,  the  hideous,  and  the 
commonplace ;  against  the  art  of  the  mechanically 
dull  copying  of  a  soulless  reality.  He  took  pains 
to  serve  beauty.  He  showed  unmistakably  the 
object  of  his  spiritualising  his  figures  and  actions. 
Before  his  pictures  one  could  once  more  dream. 
After  prose,  after  vulgar,  slangy  prose,  it  was  verse. 
People  did  not  even  ask  if  the  verses  were  good  ; 
people  were  satisfied  with  mediocre  verses,  provided 
they  were  verses.  To  Puvis  de  Chavannes  his  funda- 
mental, academic  instincts  had  given  the  direction ; 
but  whilst  he  followed  his  bent,  he  became,  without 
intending  it,  and  without  previously  knowing  it,  the 
file-leader  of  the  right-about  turn,  which  began  in 
"  the  'eighties "  and  has  now  long  ended. 

In  a  period  of  idealism  he  would  have  been  one 
of  the  many.  People  would  not  have  noticed  him 
or  would  have  found  in  him  much  to  take  exception 
to :  the  banality  of  his  symbols,  the  impersonality, 
smoothness,  and  polish  of  his  draughtsmanship,  the 
intentional  incoherence  of  his  compositions.  During 
the  predominance  of  naturalism,  his  academic  banality 

1 86 


Puvis  de  Chavannes 

itself  seemed  a  courageous  act,  and  seekers  after  the 
ideal  even  accounted  his  most  obvious  faults  and 
weaknesses  as  excellencies  in  him. 

He  got  his  faded,  spectral  colours  by  imitating 
the  fresco  painters  of  the  Quattrocentro.  His  ideal 
of  picturesque  beauty  united  in  inseparable  associa- 
tion the  stateliness  of  the  old  monumental  wall- 
paintings  with  their  fadedness  ;  and  when  he  wished 
to  paint  in  their  style  and  produce  their  aesthetic 
effects,  he  at  once  gave  his  pictures  the  faint  colora- 
tion which  had  never  been  intended  by  the  Quattro- 
centists,  but  which  their  works  have  suffered  through 
the  devastating  force  of  five  centuries.  The  obliter- 
ated, remote,  ghostly  qualities  of  this  faded  type  of 
painting  came  to  meet  a  morbid  mood  of  the  time. 
This  mystic  coloration  harmonised  with  the  prevalent 
mysticism.  The  decadents  were  thankful  to  him 
for  his  moon-stricken  colouring  ;  those  athirst  for 
beauty  for  his  conversion  to  classical  tradition  ;  and 
so  he  became  a  great  man  through  the  sins  of  the 
naturalists  and  their  critical  heralds. 

Puvis  was  the  first  academical  and  recognised 
master  in  France  who  began  to  paint  the  morbid. 
His  whim  is  chalk-wash.  He  covers,  on  principle, 
his  pictures  with  a  white,  semi-transparent  broth  that 
extinguishes  all  the  colours.  His  eye  detests  colour. 
His  glance  has  a  sort  of  chloridising  effect ;  it  takes 
the  colour  out  of  everything  it  ranges  over.  With 
him,  however,  morbidity  is  natural  and  not  an  affecta- 
tion. He  has  that  horror  of  all  that  is  loud,  full,  and 

187 


On  Art  and  Artists 

impressive,  which  marks  the  nervous  man,  whom 
every  rough  touch  pains.  It  is  well  with  him  only 
when  nature  whispers,  when  her  looks  are  veiled  in 
a  fine  mist,  when  all  life  in  her  is  motionless.  In 
his  soul  reigns  a  melancholy  absence  of  sound,  and 
he  likes  to  carry  this  into  the  outer  world  also. 
Moreover,  the  multiplicity  of  living  forms  confuses 
and  repels  him  ;  it  is  too  full  of  motion  and 
gaudiness.  He  simplifies,  therefore,  all  lines  which 
thus  lose  their  distinctive  individuality.  He  retains 
only  what  is  typical  of  the  phenomenon  ;  he  infuses 
his  style  into  all  that  his  brush  and  pencil  touch,  and 
this  cold  stylisation  is  then  called  by  people  his 
"  idealism." 

Has  Puvis  laid  himself  open  to  the  reproach  that 
all  his  figures  are  awkwardly  typical  because  he 
cannot  draw?  We  might  almost  think  so.  It  is 
only  as  a  reply  to  such  a  reproach  that  we  can 
understand  his  exhibiting  in  1896  several  hundred 
drawings,  preliminary  studies  for  all  his  chief  works. 
After  a  minute  inspection  of  these  smaller  and 
greater  sheets  of  sketches  scarcely  indicated  or 
industriously  executed,  of  figures  scarcely  outlined 
or  carefully  shaded  in  lead-pencil,  Indian  ink,  red 
and  other  coloured  chalks,  we  are  bound  to  feel  every 
respect  for  his  industry  and  conscientiousness.  For 
the  originality  of  his  talent,  too?  That  to  me  is 
questionable.  If  I  gaze  on  the  studies  of  Leonardo 
and  Albrecht  Diirer,  I  am,  in  a  very  short  time,  over- 
mastered by  an  inexpressible  emotion.  A  holy  of 

188 


Puvis  de  Chavannes 

holies  is  revealed :  the  most  secret  feelings  of  an 
artist's  soul  which  would  fain  become  conscious  of 
itself  whilst  seeking  to  give  shape  to  the  emotion 
that  is  urging  it.  You  can  see  the  struggle  with 
the  resistance  of  the  material,  the  mustering  of  all 
his  forces,  in  the  majority  of  cases  the  artist's 
victory,  ofttimes  his  despairing  confession  of  impot- 
ence. A  feature  of  the  phenomenon — a  fugitive  yet 
expressive  movement  has  made  its  impression  on  the 
artist.  He  hastens  to  fix  his  conception.  At  first 
in  a  few  hasty  strokes,  which  are  then  strengthened, 
deepened,  emphasised,  and  developed.  Five  times, 
ten  times,  till  the  artist  desists  disheartened,  or  till 
the  vision  is  overcome  and  fixed  by  a  spell  in  its 
whole  force  and  verity,  in  its  distinctive  character 
that  is  never  to  be  repeated.  In  Puvis  I  observed 
with  astonishment  the  contrary  process.  The  first 
sketch  has  always  the  greatest  individuality,  every 
later  state  of  the  figure  shows  it  less  differentiated, 
and  more  reduced  to  an  average  type  lacking  expres- 
sion. He  never  ascends,  he  goes  down.  The  artist's 
emotion  in  face  of  the  phenomenon — the  impulse 
to  produce  in  the  rapture  of  an  intuition  is  never 
traceable  in  him.  None  of  the  sheets  is  the  arena 
of  that  awful  fight  waged  by  talent  against  the 
hostile  demon  of  the  material,  which  reminds  me  of 
the  night-long  struggle  of  Jacob  with  the  spectre 
at  the  ford  Jabbok.  The  starting-point  of  the  work 
is  correct,  ice-cold  metier.  It  progresses  to  simplifica- 
tions that  are  just  so  many  evasions  of  difficulties, 

189 


On  Art  and  Artists 

and  it  finally  arrives  at  insignificant  puppets.  "  That 
was  intentional,"  cry  the  painter's  eulogists.  So  much 
the  worse  if  it  was  intentional.  But  was  it  really 
intentional  ?  That  is  the  question.  Often  enough, 
as  an  afterthought,  a  person  imagines  he  is  exercising 
volition,  whilst,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  constrained. 
For  him  who  has  learnt  to  see  in  all  works  documents 
bearing  on  their  creator's  psychology,  the  drawings 
of  Puvis  are  proof  positive  that  this  highly  famous 
man  never  glanced  at  the  world  with  an  artist's 
eye,  but  that  he  was  originally  a  cold,  academical 
technician,  who,  later  on,  by  pure  reason  and  with- 
out attaining  the  slightest  fervour,  has  subtilised  a 
peculiarity :  the  imitation  of  faded  frescoes  in  colour, 
archaic  ^differentiation  in  drawing,  abstract  literary 
symbolism  in  his  subjects. 

In  fact,  what  is  unreal  and  dream-like  about  his 
vision  is  not  only  determinative  in  regard  to  his 
archaically  simple,  almost  poor  drawing  and  his 
pallid  colour,  but  also  the  choice  of  his  subject. 
He  likes  best  to  portray  allegories,  in  which  the 
figures  are  reduced  to  the  rdle  of  symbols.  When 
he  cannot  be  allegorical,  in  his  famous  wall- 
paintings  at  the  Pantheon,  for  instance,  which  tell 
the  legend  of  St  Genevieve,  he  satisfies  his  craving 
for  spectre  painting  by  spiritualising  the  given 
historical  figures  into  fleshless,  bloodless  denizens 
of  the  ballad  of  the  land  of  Thule.  In  individual 
and  very  rare  instances,  he  finds  a  material  organically 
suitable  for  his  moon-struck  style  of  painting.  In 

190 


Puvis  de  Chavannes 

such  cases,  of  course,  he  strives  after  extraordinary 
effects ;  for  instance,  with  his  "  Poor  Fisherman " 
in  the  Luxembourg  Museum.  This  dreadfully  poor, 
emaciated  man — more  a  shadow  than  a  human  being 
— who,  sorrowfully  but  resigned,  stands  in  his  old 
patched  boat,  drops  his  wretched  net  into  the 
sluggish,  greyish-yellow  water,  and  is  surrounded 
and,  as  it  were,  fixed  by  the  dead  lines  of  a  flat 
melancholy  landscape,  breathes  a  disconsolateness 
and  abandonment  that,  at  the  sight  of  him, 
"humanity's  whole  sorrow"  seizes  the  beholder. 

Once  again,  in  his  last  period,  Puvis  lighted  on 
one  of  those  rare  subjects  which  not  only  bear,  but 
demand  his  peculiar  methods  of  execution,  and  out 
of  this  lucky  encounter  came  forth  a  masterpiece, 
viz.,  the  fresco  which  concludes  his  G^nevieve  cycle. 

St  Genevieve  has  stepped  out  of  her  cell  on  to 
the  balcony  of  her  convent  and  lets  her  glance 
roam  over  Paris.  At  her  feet  lies  the  slumbering 
city ;  in  the  foreground  surge  the  red-tiled  roofs, 
between  which  soar  a  few  tree-tops  in  the  luxuriant 
verdure  of  midsummer ;  in  the  distance  stretch  the 
soft  hill  lines  of  a  cheerful  landscape,  the  green  of 
whose  meadows  is  interrupted,  here  and  there,  by  the 
white  mass  of  a  convent  or  abbey.  Slender  lilies  and 
gladioli  bloom  in  noble  vessels  on  the  balcony.  In 
the  bare  cell,  the  door  of  which  is  wide  open  behind 
the  saint,  the  smoking  flame  of  a  lamp  of  antique 
pattern  smoulders.  At  the  summit,  in  a  deep  blue 
sky,  hangs  the  full  moon,  which  softly  illumines  city 

191 


On  Art  and  Artists 

and  landscape,  and  casts  an  eerie  gleam  on  the 
curled  leafage  of  the  tree-tops.  Immersed  and 
bathed  in  its  soft  radiance,  the  saint  stands  there, 
unearthly  with  her  thin,  ascetic  countenance  and  her 
white  nun's  habit,  which  from  her  headcloth  to  the 
trailing  hem  of  her  garment  flows  down  in  unbroken, 
perpendicular  lines,  and  seems  to  lift  up  her  soul 
in  a  quiet,  ecstatic  prayer  for  the  slumbering  town, 
whose  peaceful  prosperity  is  a  work  of  her  solicitous 
love.  Here  Puvis's  peculiar  method  triumphs  in 
every  feature.  Here  his  temperament  needed  only 
to  give  itself  its  natural  scope  to  attain  the  highest 
astistic  result.  What  elsewhere  is  intolerable  affecta- 
tion becomes  here  the  honest  revelation  of  a  mood. 
The  subdued  harmony  of  violet  and  blue  in  different 
gradations  of  intensity  that  blend  softly  into  one 
another  is  legitimate  in  the  picture  of  a  summer 
night,  which  takes  its  sole  spectral  light  from  the 
moon  and  an  oil-lamp.  The  paleness  of  the  flesh 
is  understandable  in  the  aging  nun  who  mortifies 
herself  by  prayer,  vigils,  and  fasting.  The  simplicity 
of  the  drawing,  which  is  reduced  to  a  few  straight 
and  slightly  though  expressively  curved  lines,  finds 
its  defence  in  the  dusk  of  the  semi-transparent  night 
which  suppresses  all  individualities  of  forms ;  and 
leaves  only  for  us  general,  essential  features,  and 
these  rather  surmised  than  clearly  seen.  Thus  here 
a  special  subject  finds  its  special  and  fully  adequate 
means  of  expression,  and  the  work  becomes  a  model 
of  what  is  termed  style  in  the  highest  sense. 

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Puvis  de  Chavannes 

A  rejuvenation  seemed  to  come  over  Puvis  when 
he  seized  once  more  on  the  Genevieve  theme  which 
had  occupied  him  from  the  days  of  his  youth.  This 
theme  was  to  him  what  the  theme  of  Faust  was  to 
Goethe :  while  the  octogenarian  was  engrossed  in  it, 
something  of  the  flame  that  glowed  in  the  young 
man  of  twenty  fired  him,  and  the  last  cry  of 
Una  pcenitentium  l  is  still  an  after-thrill  of  Gretchen's 
passion.  Puvis,  too,  appears  to  have  thought  or  felt 
"  Ihr  naht  euch  wieder,  schwankende  Gestalten  !  "  when 
he  set  about  painting  this  concluding  picture  of  the 
Genevieve  cycle  ;  and  for  the  last  strophe  of  his  ballad, 
which  dies  away  so  sadly,  he  found  again  some  of  the 
power  and  unction  which  secures  to  its  predecessors 
their  glorious  place  in  the  century's  Art. 

If  the  brazen  foreheads  of  the  babblers  who  have 
the  chief  say  in  the  art  criticism  of  the  time  were 
at  all  capable  of  a  decent  blush,  they  would  turn 
red  with  shame  at  his  series  of  frescoes  in  the 
Pantheon.  People  had  the  audacity  to  claim  Puvis 
for  some  "  modernity "  or  other,  in  which  certain 
moods  of  our  time  were  said  to  be  incorporated. 
The  only  time  when  one  can  wholly  surrender 
oneself  to  him,  he  is  absolutely  of  no  time.  What, 
in  that  instance,  fascinates  in  him  is  nothing  relating 
to  the  present,  and  still  less  to  the  future,  but  the 
past  and  the  remote  past,  the  atavistic.  His  life's 
great  work  is  a  legend  of  a  saint,  which  he  has 
treated  after  the  manner  of  a  legend  with  the  feelings 

1  Faust  :  II.  Theil }  sub  fin. 

193  N 


On  Art  and  Artists 

of  a  primitive  who,  in  the  manner  natural  to  him — 
the  manner  of  about  the  fourteenth  century — tells  a 
story  that  is  to  him  a  living  verity,  in  which  he 
believes,  as  those  souls  believe  it  for  whose  edifica- 
tion he  presents  it,  and  which  moves  and  touches 
him  as  it  does  the  beholders  who  will  fold  their 
hands  devoutly  before  his  work.  Puvis  cannot 
reckon  on  such  a  reception  from  his  contemporaries, 
for  whom  he  designs  his  creation.  To  us  the 
legend  is  strange ;  it  is  a  bit  of  learned  literature 
which  we  look  at  critically,  and  in  which  we  cannot 
be  expected  to  plunge  believingly.  If  Puvis,  never- 
theless, overcomes  our  opposition,  and  can  suggest 
to  us  for  moments  the  child-like  faith  and  all  the 
emotions  of  dead  and  gone  times  that  are  connected 
with  that  faith,  he  has  achieved  something  more 
difficult  than  the  primitives,  for  whom  the  spirit  of 
their  time  was  no  opponent,  but  a  confederate. 

Blessed  are  the  ignorant.  Their  lack  of  suspicion 
secures  them,  whenever  they  glance  at  the  world, 
the  enthusiasm  of  discovery  and  invention,  and 
every  phenomenon  delights  them  as  something 
unprecedented.  During  the  lifetime  of  Puvis  de 
Chavannes  his  peculiar  style  was  particularly  extolled 
by  his  eulogists.  They  exhibited  him  as  a  God-sent 
foundling ;  as  a  Moses  of  painting,  without  ancestors, 
himself  an  ancestor;  as  a  great  solitary  wandering 
apart  from  the  multitude  through  the  history  of  con- 
temporary art.  Such  phrases  can  be  uttered  only  by 
one  who  rejoices  in  the  most  refreshing  ignorance 

194 


Puvis  de  Chavannes 

of  the  historical  continuity  of  things.  Puvis  is  of  a 
family.  The  expert  can  name  his  forefathers  and 
relations ;  he  finds  their  lineaments  repeated — often 
coarsened  and  disfigured — in  him. 

Puvis,  this  great,  original  genius  of  his  admirers, 
is  an  impoverished  descendant  of  Cornelius.  He 
represents  the  worst  aberration  in  art  that  this  century 
has  seen,  viz.,  thought-painting.  Nowadays  it  is  no 
longer  necessary  to  prove  that  abstraction  is  the 
negation  and  abrogation  of  plastic  art.  This  maxim, 
fortunately,  has  become  an  aesthetic  commonplace. 
Painting  has  to  do  only  with  sensuous  phenomena ; 
abstraction  distils  from  the  sensuous  one  quality, 
which,  since  it  is  common  to  many  phenomena,  is 
reminiscent  of  many  phenomena,  yet  is  itself  not 
phenomenon.  He  who  feels  the  impulse  to  paint 
not  views  but  thoughts,  proves  that  in  his  innermost 
soul  he  is  not  a  painter,  but  a  rhetorician,  and  that  he 
has  deceived  himself  marvellously  as  to  the  method 
of  expression  natural  and  organic  to  him.  Cornelius's 
painting  presented  thoughts,  religious,  philosophical, 
and  historical  dogmas,  in  a  picture-language  con- 
siderably less  clearly  than  might  have  been  done 
in  well-ordered  words.  It  pleased  all  those  whose 
soul  was  seven  times  sealed  against  understanding 
what  really  constitutes  painting.  As  long  as  the 
Cornelius  tendency  was  dominant  in  Germany,  that 
country  was  depressingly  behind  in  the  art  life  of  the 
period.  As  soon  as  Cornelius  and  his  school  were 
overthrown,  a  sound  development  of  German  painting 

195 


On  Art  and  Artists 

began.  And  now,  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  France,  in  the  France  which  has  produced, 
in  landscape,  Corot,  Rousseau,  Diaz,  Harpignies :  in 
figure- painting,  Millet,  Courbet,  Bonnat,  Roll :  from 
which  has  come  the  return  to  nature  and  the 
renaissance  of  art,  the  allegorical  thought-painting 
of  a  Puvis  has  been  praised  as  the  greatest  advance, 
as  the  latest  step  in  development !  The  snake  biting 
its  own  tail  still  remains  the  truest  symbol  of  human 
activity  that  the  self-knowledge  of  the  race  has  as 
yet  discovered. 

And  how  far,  in  his  special  direction,  Puvis  lags 
behind  his  obsolete  predecessors !  A  Cornelius, 
Kaulbach,  and  Stilke,  displayed,  after  all,  in  the 
invention  of  their  symbols,  a  rich  power  of  imagina- 
tion which  might  have  been  worthy  of  better  things. 
Their  two-legged  abstractions  were  so  honestly  drawn 
that  they  deceived  with  regard  to  their  phantom- 
like  nature,  and  could  give  themselves  out  to  be  real 
creatures  of  flesh  and  blood.  Puvis's  invention,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  so  poor  that  it  whines  pitifully  for 
alms.  The  representations  which  kindle  his  imagina- 
tion seem  derived  solely  from  an  illustrated  hand- 
book of  mythology  for  girls'  schools.  For  an 
example  of  this,  one  has  only  to  look  at  the  wall- 
paintings  for  the  Boston  Library,  which  are  among 
the  most  important  work  that  Puvis  has  done,  at  least 
so  far  as  their  range  and  claims  are  concerned.  The 
first  represents  the  inspiring  Muses  "greeting  with 
acclamations  light  carrying  the  Genius."  From  a 

196 


Puvis  de  Chavannes 

schematic  landscape  with  sickly  pale  meadows,  a  sea 
of  ultramarine  blue,  and  spanned  by  a  sky  the  colour 
of  autumn  foliage,  nine  female  figures  are  flying  to 
meet  a  delightfully  insignificant  naked  youth  striding 
on  clouds  of  wadding.  This  youth  holds  in  each 
hand  a  powerfully  brilliant  electrical  lamp,  evidently 
the  Teslasch  alternating  current  light,  as  wires  are 
nowhere  visible.  The  least  fault  of  this  picture  is 
that  the  Muses  are  not  aspiring  in  voluntary, 
independent  flight,  but  hang  motionless  in  the  air 
in  a  passive  attitude,  like  Giotto's  angels  and  saints, 
who  have  not  yet  learnt  to  fly.  Its  mortal  sin  is 
that  it  wishes  to  represent  in  painting  a  vulgar, 
rhetorical  arrangement  composed  of  a  number  of 
abstractions. 

Beside  this  allegory,  Puvis  opens  five  windows 
on  his  world  of  dreams.  Naked  shepherds  observe, 
in  a  southern  night,  the  course  of  the  stars,  and 
are  themselves  observed  by  a  young  woman  who 
is  creeping  out  of  a  lowly  leafy  hut.  A  man  in 
a  sort  of  Roman  dress  looks  thoughtfully  at  some 
bee-hives,  whilst  peasants  in  the  distance  are  busy 
working  in  the  fields.  A  greybeard  is  sitting  by 
the  sea,  from  which  a  steep  cliff  emerges.  On  its 
summit  a  man  is  chained  almost  in  the  attitude 
of  the  Crucified.  The  shadow  of  an  approaching 
vulture  falls  on  him.  Maidens  emerging  from  the 
sea  hover  round  him  with  disconsolate  gestures. 
We  must  necessarily  recognise  Prometheus  and 
the  Oceanides  in  the  scene.  Another  old  man, 

197 


On  Art  and  Artists 

who  is  blind,  receives  laurel  branches  from  two 
young  beauties.  A  haughty  dame  stretches  her 
arm  with  magic  gestures  over  a  mysterious  abyss 
that  has  engulfed  mighty  marble  buildings,  pillars, 
and  woodwork.  Behind  the  woman  stands  a  youth 
with  a  torch  and  book  in  his  hand.  I  have  described 
in  brief  what  one  actually  sees.  Puvis  means  the 
star-gazers  for  Chaldaean  shepherds  ;  the  Roman  for 
Vergil ;  the  greybeard  in  front  of  the  Prometheus- 
rocks  for  ^Eschylus ;  the  blind  man  for  Homer 
receiving  the  laurels  from  the  hands  of  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  personified  ;  the  enchantress  for  history 
conjuring  up  the  past.  We  are  to  read  still  more 
into  it.  The  Chaldeans  signify  astronomy  ;  Vergil 
bucolic  poetry,  ^Eschylus  dramatic,  Homer  epic ; 
the  conjurer  up  of  the  dead  and  ruined,  Clio.  Thus 
we  have  before  us  five  polished  planes  of  the  prism 
of  man's  spiritual  activity,  five  domains  of  the  Muses 
— a  fitting  decoration  for  a  library.  These  abstrac- 
tions are  painted  in  an  abstract  style.  The  human 
beings  are  schematic  drawings  as  if  taken  from 
statues  for  illustrating  an  academic  canon.  They 
live  psychically  only  through  their  artificial  gestures 
— not  through  their  mask — visages  without  mien  of 
glance.  The  landscapes  are  geometrical  combina- 
tions of  rocks  which  a  Cyclopean  stone-mason  has 
hewn  in  ancient  style ;  of  mountains  whose  ridge 
stretches  in  architectural  lines ;  of  evenly  -  coloured 
masses  of  deep-blue  sea,  pale-green  sky,  and  sap- 
green  grass  country.  The  land  is  called  Utopia,  and 

198 


Puvis  de  Chavannes 

is  inhabited  by  Outis :  in  English,  Nowhere  and 
Nobody.  The  indigo,  emerald,  and  turquoise  tone 
is  pleasant  to  the  eye,  especially  as  Puvis  has  here, 
contrary  to  his  murderous  habit,  not  massacred  the 
living  colours.  But  nothing  except  the  harmony  of 
colours  appeals  to  me  in  these  pictures.  It  is  not 
painting :  it  is  writing.  It  does  not  presuppose  in 
me  any  feeling  for  art,  but  only  a  decent,  classical 
education.  It  taps  on  my  school  satchel.  Before 
these  five  Puvis  de  Chavannes  pictures,  I  think  of 
a  highly  -  educated  Japanese,  learned  in  all  the 
wisdom  of  his  country,  with  the  most  delicate 
feelings  for  line  and  harmony  of  colours ;  an 
appreciator  of  Hokusai  and  the  other  great  masters 
of  Japan  :  he  will  receive  no  impression  at  all  from 
Puvis's  works ;  he  will  look  upon  the  figures  as 
phantoms,  the  scenes  as  so  much  childishness ;  he 
will  not  have  an  inkling  what  these  forms,  remotely 
resembling  human  beings,  are  doing,  or  what  they 
mean.  For  he  is  not  acquainted  with  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classics,  and  without  this  hypothesis  the  works 
of  Puvis  are  dead  symbols,  incomprehensible  to  any 
one  unprovided  with  the  special  key,  and  without 
the  natural  constraining  power  of  plain  human  truth 
and  beauty.  The  provoking  over-estimation  of  his 
work  by  corybantic  critics  justified  every  severity 
against  Puvis  de  Chavannes  in  his  lifetime.  Now 
his  appreciation  no  longer  requires  polemical  pricks, 
and  we  can  say  that  his  Genevieve  cycle  secures  him 
a  permanent  place  in  the  history  of  art ;  that  his 

199 


On  Art  and  Artists 

great  allegorical  frescoes  are  cold,  dead,  sprawling, 
pretentious  subtleties ;  and  that  neither  his  drawing 
nor  his  colour  sanctify  him  as  a  master  and  model. 
His  importance  consists  in  this,  i.e.,  that  in  his 
time  the  longing  for  beauty  took  him  as  a  cloak 
for  a  passionate  confession.  The  Puvis  cult  was, 
in  the  main,  a  reaction  against  Realism.  By  the 
exaggeration  with  which  he  was  honoured  may  be 
measured  the  greatness  of  the  disgust  which  his 
contemporaries  felt  for  naturalistic  art. 


200 


CHARLES   COTTET 

A  GENERATION  ago  opposition  arose  against  gloomy 
painting.  Down  with  the  twilight  cellar  painting! 
Down  with  the  studio  sauce !  Hurrah  for  the  open 
air  !  Long  live  free  light !  With  this  war-song  a 
brave,  hot  -  blooded  band  stormed  art  academies 
and  studios  of  masters,  and,  shouting  for  joy, 
planted  their  silver  and  violet  banner  on  the  posts 
they  had  taken.  For  two  whole  decades  the  art 
exhibitions  presented  a  cheerful,  festive  aspect.  It 
was  always  Sunday.  The  glow  of  a  southern  noon 
rested  over  whole  walls.  From  the  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  canvases,  big  and  little,  streamed  the 
gleaming  sunlight  in  its  full  glory.  Men,  beasts, 
things,  landscapes — all  swam  in  luminous  splendour 
which,  at  most,  patches  of  violet  shadow  subdued 
timidly.  Nature  seemed  to  know  no  other  condi- 
tions of  light  than  those  of  Capri  in  July.  About 
the  turn  of  the  century  this  suddenly  began  to 
change.  In  some  pictures  the  light  went  out. 

20 1 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Certain  painters  again  discovered  the  darkness  of 
evening,  of  leaden-clouded  winter's  day,  of  thickets, 
of  rooms.  On  some  palettes  the  eternal  white  and 
violet  was  replaced  by  the  old  brown,  black,  and 
olive-green  of  our  fathers.  The  phenomenon  became, 
year  by  year,  more  marked.  To-day  the  change  is 
accomplished.  Free  light  is  thrown  away  after  the 
old  moons.  Painting  has  grown  sick  of  noonday 
There  is  an  atmosphere  of  twilight  in  all  the 
pictures.  The  young  painters — the  victors  of  the 
day — use  as  much  asphalt,  mummy,  and  umber,  as 
did  the  old  ones  thirty  years  ago.  Whole  ranges 
of  walls  in  the  Paris  salons  lie  as  in  deep  shadow, 
and  we  may  go  through  several  rooms  before  finding 
a  creature  represented  as  "breathing  in  rosy  light." 

What  satires  these  salons  are  on  the  consequential, 
high -stepping,  deep -thinking  drivel  of  professorial 
and  other  chatterers,  who,  to  hide  their  dearth  of 
thoughts,  turn  out  new  words,  discover  in  our  days 
a  particular  "  charm "  in  painting  as  in  other  arts, 
and  prove  by  a-\-b  the  necessary,  logically  offered 
expression  of  new  spiritual  needs  of  the  present 
generation. 

Now  what  has  become  of  the  "  charm "  that 
calculatingly  demanded  "  free  light "  and  nothing 
else?  And  how  is  it,  then,  with  the  spiritual  needs 
of  the  present  generation,  to  which  free  light  and 
nothing  else  corresponded  ?  And  how  does  it  stand 
with  the  new  way,  in  which  favoured  artists  have 
taught  us  to  contemplate  and  to  feel  nature  ? 

202 


Bright  and  Dark  Painting— Charles  Cottet 

Was  the  "  charm "  four  or  five  years  ago  inclined 
to  brilliancy,  and  is  it  changed  during  the  night  to 
an  insatiable  longing  for  gloom  ?  Did  white  and 
violet  correspond  five  years  ago  to  the  spiritual  needs 
of  the  present  generation,  and  does  this  generation 
now  need  black,  brown,  or  olive-green  tones  ?  Have 
we  just  as  quickly  again  unlearnt  to  contemplate 
and  feel  nature  in  sun-gold  and  violet,  as  favoured 
artists  have  taught  us  to  do? 

Living  art  goes  her  way  according  to  her  own 
laws  and  impulses,  and  leaves  in  the  lurch  the 
babbling  empty  heads,  with  their  pretentious  thresh- 
ing of  phrases,  who  tramp  after  her,  expounding 
and  talking  wisely  interpretations  and  clever  chatter. 
Not  by  a  particular  "  incentive  "  of  the  period,  not 
from  its  alleged  spiritual  needs  and  currents  of 
thought,  are  the  changes  of  art  creation  to  be 
explained,  but  solely  by  the  psychology  of  the 
artists,  by  their  very  human,  very  weakly  prosaic 
needs,  by  the  material  and  moral  conditions  under 
which  they  are  nowadays  condemned  to  work. 

The  salons,  the  art  exhibitions,  are  in  our  time 
the  annual  marts  of  success  for  painters.  In  these 
they  have  to  seek  fame  and  its  train-bearer — pay- 
ment in  cash.  In  these  they  must  strive  amongst 
a  thousand  or  two  thousand  competitors  to  astonish 
at  any  price.  By  special  beauty  or  special  nobility  ? 
This  means  will  be  chosen  by  the  very  fewest. 
Firstly,  not  one  in  a  thousand  has  it  in  his  power. 
In  the  second  place,  even  an  artist  not  in  the  front 

203 


On  Art  and  Artists 

rank  has  enough  Philistine  contempt  to  be  convinced 
that  nobility  and  beauty  are  the  last  things  for 
which  the  crowd  has  a  taste.  His  hunger  for 
success  —  a  fitting  form  of  his  instinct  for  self- 
preservation  —  gives  the  artist  sense  and  under- 
standing of  the  psychology  of  the  multitude,  whose 
elementary  law  is  that  it  is  obtuse  to  that  which 
is  common  and  reacts  on  what  is  uncommon. 
The  artist  who  works  with  an  eye  to  exhibiting 
where  his  work  will  be  one  of  two  thousand,  has 
only  one  endeavour,  viz.,  to  be  as  different  as  possible 
from  these,  and  by  this  means  possibly  to  make 
a  striking  impression  amongst  them.  The  contrary 
is  the  greatest  difference  possible.  That  is  the 
polar  line,  the  angle  of  180  degrees.  Logic,  which 
unconsciously  proceeds  geometrically,  brings  the 
artist  to  this.  He  also  looks  sharply  at  what  the 
others  are  doing ;  puts  himself  to  trouble  to  find 
out  what  they  have  in  common,  and  in  what 
respect  they  resemble  each  other ;  and  when  he 
has  discovered  this,  or  thinks  he  has  done  so,  he 
proceeds  to  do  the  exact  reverse. 

If  he  has  properly  recognised  the  predominating 
element  and  has  hit  the  exact  opposite,  the  victory 
is  gained  with  a  weight  that  overthrows  all  before 
it.  Professional  associates,  critics,  and  public  stand 
in  front  of  something  new.  The  novelty  -  hating 
majority  feels  the  disturbance  in  their  lazy  mental 
habits  as  an  insult  and  discomfort,  and  sets  up 
a  yell.  The  minority  of  unsatisfied  gainsayers, 

204 


Bright  and  Dark  Painting— Charles  Cottet 

morbid  bread-hunters,  vain  coxcombs,  and  enthusiasts 
longing  for  the  glorious  Unknown  and  Unprecedented, 
passionately  take  side  for  the  novelty.  This  serves 
as  an  excuse  for  a  conflict  of  those  eternal  con- 
servative and  radical  tendencies,  whose  battle  may 
be  seen  throughout  the  whole  history  of  human 
development ;  and  the  artist  who  unchains  these 
tempests  sees  himself  honoured  as  one  of  the 
embodiments  of  contemporary  thought,  as  a  power 
in  civilisation.  Only  quite  exceptionally  is  a  cool 
analyst  found  to  say  with  smiling  tranquillity  amidst 
the  bluster  of  the  war  of  minds :  "  Dear  children, 
don't  excite  yourselves  like  that ;  the  word  '  new ' 
is  no  verdict.  To  be  different  does  not  necessarily 
mean  to  be  better.  An  old  tendency  may  contain 
beauty  in  itself;  a  new  one  may,  of  course,  do  so 
too,  but  not  necessarily.  He  who  grows  excited 
on  behalf  of  the  old,  simply  because  it  is  old,  is 
commonplace.  He  who  grows  excited  for  the  sake 
of  something  new,  merely  because  it  is  new,  is 
commonplace  with  a  negative  prefix.  Only  wait  a 
little  while.  In  a  short  space  of  time  the  new  will 
have  become  old,  and  you  will  recognise  that  there 
was  no  grounds  for  raising  a  noise  about  it.  The 
man  of  the  new  thing,  whom  you  hail  as  the 
bringer  of  a  new  salvation,  is  no  better  than  the 
ancients ;  but  he  is  right,  for  he  wishes  to  be 
noticed,  to  inherit  from  the  ancients,  and  that  is 
wholly  justified  from  his  selfish  standpoint." 

The   would  -  be    aristocrats   of    intelligence  —  the 
205 


On  Art  and  Artists 

"  intellectuals  " — would  find  a  speech  like  this  intoler- 
ably homely.  It  is  not  in  the  least  "deep."  It  is 
not  at  all  applicable  to  the  mystic  inclinations  of 
vaporous  brains.  It  discovers  no  single  unsurmised 
and  astounding  relation  between  phenomena  that 
have  nothing  in  common  with  each  other ;  but  I 
believe  it  is  literally  true. 

The  "Impressionists"  of  the  Caillebotte  room  in 
the  Luxembourg  painted  brightly  when  the  salon  was 
correspondingly  dark.  The  one  light  picture  among 
the  dark  paintings  acted  like  a  window  that  opens 
in  the  gloomy  wall  to  the  sunny  air.  When  the 
other  painters  saw  that  the  multitude  flew  towards 
this  bright  point,  like  moths  after  the  flame  of  a 
taper,  they  hastened  to  paint  also  in  bright  colours. 
"  Free  light "  was  discovered.  It  corresponded  to 
no  mood  of  the  period.  Free  light  is  joyous  and 
satisfied.  The  spirit  of  the  age  was,  during  its 
predominance  in  painting,  pessimistic  and  sick  with 
longing  as  it  had  hardly  ever  been  in  the  past. 
Nor  was  it  a  new  way  of  seeing  and  feeling  nature. 
Turner,  Corot,  Claude  Lorrain,  Ostade,  Salvator 
Rosa  himself  had  seen  and  felt  nature  quite  as 
brightly  as  Manet  and  Monet  had  done.  The  truth 
is  that  the  "  Impressionists "  were  turbulent  young 
people  who  got  angry  at  vegetating  in  obscurity 
whilst  Gudin  and  Schnetz,  Signol  and  Miiller,  Pils, 
Cabanel,  Dubufe,  and  Robert  Fleury  had  all  the 
honours  and  successes  ;  and  that  impelled  by  envious 
loathing  of  these  celebrities  of  that  day,  they  found, 

206 


Bright  and  Dark  Painting— Charles  Cottet 

as  it  were,  in  a  negative  chemo-tropical  way,  the 
exact  reverse  of  their  dark  style. 

Five  years  ago  the  same  incident  was  played 
off  exactly  in  the  opposite  direction.  Everybody 
was  painting  in  a  bright  style.  The  Schnetz  and 
Cabanel,  Delaunay  and  Cogniet  of  the  day  were 
called  Puvis  de  Chavannes  and  Roll,  Besnard  and 
Cazin.  Then,  again,  some  young  people  got  angry 
about  their  being  unknown  and  unheeded,  and  they 
entered,  consciously  and  of  set  purpose,  into  opposi- 
tion against  the  celebrities  of  the  day.  Charles 
Cottet  exhibited  a  black  picture  which,  in  the  middle 
of  a  blinding  white  exhibition  wall,  struck  just  as 
glaringly  as  did,  thirty  years  ago,  the  bright  picture 
in  the  middle  of  the  black  wall.  Cottet  had  hit 
the  bull's  eye.  He  instantly  created  a  school,  and 
to-day  the  salons  look  once  more  as  they  did  thirty 
years  ago,  to  be  once  more  flooded  with  free  light, 
probably,  some  twenty  or  thirty  years  hence.  It 
is  an  orbit  without  beginning  or  end,  an  eternal 
beginning  over  again,  and  only  posing  fools  seek, 
in  this  monotonous,  periodical  return  of  the  same 
effects  under  the  influence  of  the  same  causes,  to 
ferret  out  connections  with  definite  phenomena  of 
the  times. 

Charles  Cottet  is  developing  into  the  undisputed 
leader  of  the  young  race  of  painters.  He  deserves 
the  recognition  accorded  to  him,  yet  it  is  a  serious 
matter  that  he  provokes  to  imitation ;  for  what  in 
him  is  uncouth,  though  justifiable,  independence, 

207 


On  Art  and  Artists 

will  become  with  the  imitators  a  manner  that  may 
rapidly  pass  into  intolerable  aberration.  Cottet 
loves  dark  harmonies  of  colour.  He  paints  night, 
closed  rooms  illumined  by  artificial  light,  candle  and 
fire  effects;  unlike  Rembrandt,  whose  glooms  are 
delicate  and  transparent,  whose  men  and  things  are 
particularly  self-luminous  in  sunless  space ;  and 
unlike  his  pupil,  Schalcken,  who  treats  flames  and 
their  reflections  roughly  after  the  manner  of  a  black- 
smith, without  mystery  or  harmony.  Cottet  paints 
it  apparently  more  from  joy  in  darkness  than  joy  in 
light,  for  with  him  darkness  is  generally  the  principal 
thing,  and  the  sources  of  light  are  there  chiefly  to 
call  attention  to  the  sinister  stir  and  movement  in 
the  unillumined  dusk.  His  imitators  do  not  see 
the  intense  life  of  his  shadows.  They  only  see  his 
black,  brown,  and  dark  -  green  palette,  and  dimly 
brush  away  at  it  again  as  in  the  worst  days  before 
the  dawn  of  "  free  light." 

Painting  goes  out  into  the  night,  and  will  remain 
there  a  while.  Then  once  more  a  cheerful  and 
free  artist  will  come,  and  discover  light  for  an 
astonished  and  enraptured  world,  and  he  will  be 
deified  or  damned  as  a  revolutionist  just  as  Monet 
was  thirty-five  years  ago  when  he  did  the  same,  and 
as  Cottet  was  five  years  ago  when  he  did  the  reverse. 
And  thus  it  will  ever  be  so  long  as  in  the  human 
apparatus  of  thought  a  change  of  impression  will 
relax  conscious  feeling,  and  art  creation  will  have 
to  serve,  not  only  the  utterance  of  strong  impulses 

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Bright  and  Dark  Painting— Charles  Cottet 

of  emotion  and  the  relaxation  of  the  nervous  system, 
but  also  the  ambition  or  vanity  of  the  artist,  which 
means,  I  suppose,  to  the  end  of  time. 

Cottet's  execution  is  somewhat  brutal.  He  works 
in  the  style  of  Ribot,  who  was  himself  a  curious 
mixture  of  reminiscences  of  Franz  Hals,  Ribera,  and 
Velasquez,  with  an  admixture  of  personal  self-will. 
He  lays  great,  dark,  almost  dirty  spots  on  the 
canvas,  and  treats  human  skin  with  boorish  coarse- 
ness —  I  might  almost  say,  with  the  curry-comb. 
But  what  truth  and  energy  in  all  the  movements ! 
How  economically  and  yet  how  exhaustively  he  can 
reveal  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  his  subject. 
There  is  little  in  the  whole  of  modern  painting  so 
pathetic  as  his  three-panelled  picture,  "  Sea  Folk," 
that  now  adorns  the  Luxembourg  Museum.  In  the 
middle,  the  parting  meal  of  the  Jack  Tars  before  start- 
ing, round  the  village  table  fifteen  people,  strapping 
young  men  with  their  womenfolk — mothers,  wives, 
and  sweethearts.  Through  the  open  window  dark- 
green  night  looks  in  ;  from  the  petroleum  lamp  there 
gleams  a  sharp  streak  of  yellow  light ;  the  men  sit 
close  to  each  other  in  silence ;  forebodings  and  the 
sadness  of  leave-taking  exalt  them  and  raise  the  souls 
of  these  horny-handed  toilers  to  the  regions  of  poetic 
thought  and  dreams.  On  the  right,  the  boat  that 
is  conveying  the  sailors  to  their  ship ;  some  are 
rowing  or  steering,  the  rest  are  in  a  reverie.  All 
go  carelessly  to  meet  their  fate,  which  perhaps  will 
mean  merely  prosaic  seaman's  work  on  a  voyage 

209  O 


On  Art  and  Artists 

without  any  adventures,  but  perhaps  even  heroic 
tragedies  of  struggle  and  destruction.  On  the  left, 
the  women  remaining  behind,  who  watch  from  the 
shore  the  departing  men,  their  lovers,  their  bread- 
winners, with  sorrowful  love  and  prayer  in  their 
looks,  their  mien,  their  hands,  and  their  attitudes. 

Possibly  this  profound  picture  moves  me  so  much 
only  because  it  illustrates  completely  what  I  meant 
when  I  described  the  social  mission  of  art  in  the 
future  in  these  words :  "  In  a  work  of  art  which  is 
to  attract  the  people,  the  people  must  find  themselves 
again,  but  just  as  formerly  the  priest  and  king  did  : 
magnified  and  ennobled.  The  work  of  art  must  show 
them  their  own  likeness,  though  a  beautified  one- 
It  must  raise  the  people  in  their  own  eyes,  teach 
them  to  respect  themselves.  .  .  .  Works  which  can 
show  the  dignity  and  beauty  of  the  occupations  of 
the  multitude,  which  are  a  sanctification  of  labour,  an 
apotheosis  of  the  tragedies  and  idyls,  of  all  the  sweet 
and  bitter  stirrings  of  emotion  in  the  common  life — 
these  works,  I  believe,  constitute  the  type  of  the  art 
work  of  the  future." 

Cottet's  triptych  is  one  of  these  works.  It  renders 
my  abstract  deductions  concrete.  He  is  a  great 
painter  who  can  extract  with  so  sure  a  hand  from  the 
stone  of  everyday  life  all  the  gold  of  beauty  it  contains. 

Cottet  gets  his  suggestions  for  the  most  part  from 
Brittany.  Almost  all  his  works,  in  any  case  his 
most  famous  ones,  tell  of  Breton  nature  and  the  life 
of  the  Breton  people.  His  "  Midsummer  Fire "  is 

2IO 


Bright  and  Dark  Painting— Charles  Cottet 

very  affecting.  The  holiday  fire  is  kindled  beneath 
the  clear  sky  of  a  midsummer  night ;  around  it 
assemble  the  Bretons,  ever  faithful  to  their  traditions. 
The  smoke  ascends  vertically ;  the  flames  glow  on 
the  countenances  gazing  on  them.  Old  women  and 
children  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  who  celebrate 
the  solstice  according  to  ancient  custom  ;  there  are 
hardly  one  or  two  men  among  the  devout  multitude. 
The  sterner  sex,  the  middle-aged,  laugh  at  the 
superstition  ;  but  the  grandmothers  foster  the  custom 
of  their  ancestors,  and  entwine  it  into  the  earliest 
childhood  of  their  grandchildren  as  a  dear  remem- 
brance that  grows  up  with  all  the  joys  and  sorrows 
of  their  infant  years.  Thus  what  is  old  is  retained 
and  is  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation. 
Cottet  has  expressively  illustrated  this  rule  of  folk- 
lore, not  because  he  intended  it,  but  because  he 
was  true.  Far  and  wide,  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
reach,  other  fires  are  burning,  and  mirroring  them- 
selves in  the  sea,  and  you  can  guess  that,  even 
around  the  furthest,  which  are  hardly  visible  in  the 
night,  the  villagers  are  making  a  circle,  just  as 
round  the  flame  in  the  foreground.  One  single 
note  hovers  over  the  whole  of  this  landscape  ;  one 
single  feeling  dominates  the  soul  of  all  this  popula- 
tion. Each  one  of  these  old  women  whose  glances 
are  submerged  in  the  holy  flame  feels  herself  at 
this  instant  a  unit  of  the  whole  race  inhabiting  the 
hereditary  granite  soil,  and  part  and  parcel  of  her 
forefathers  who  have  long  rested  beneath  the  sod. 

211 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Thus  a  real  work  of  art,  without  straying  into 
literature,  points  far  beyond  its  own  boundaries. 

The  "  National  Fete  at  Camaret "  is  celebrated  so 
earnestly  by  the  Breton  peasants  that,  in  spite  of 
the  bright  paper  lamps  on  the  tree,  it  has  the  effect 
of  a  church  solemnity.  In  "  The  Old  Breton  Nag," 
Cottet  has  translated  from  bronze  into  less  severe 
painting  one  of  the  never-to-be-forgotten  coal-mine 
horses  of  Constantin  Meunier.  "  Mourning  by  the 
Sea"  is  one  of  his  masterpieces.  Grandmother, 
mother,  and  daughter  are  sitting  together  on  a 
stone  bench  on  the  shore.  They  are  all  three 
wearing  widow's  weeds.  They  are  speechless  and 
motionless,  abandoned  to  their  thoughts,  which  abide 
with  their  dead.  The  sea,  which  has  swallowed 
their  husbands,  and  to  which  they  turn  their  backs, 
lurks  behind  them  in  insidious  calm  behind  two 
storms  that  depopulate  the  coast,  and  leave  behind 
the  granite  cliffs  only  old  and  young  widows  and 
children,  who,  in  turn,  also  will  be  trained  for  the 
sea — the  merciless  sea,  on  which  the  poor  devoted 
fishermen  and  sailors  seek  their  living  and  find  their 
death.  The  existence  of  a  population,  its  truceless 
fight  with  hostile  nature,  is  comprised  in  the  black 
figures  of  these  three  modern  Niobes.  To-day,  too, 
as  in  its  beginnings,  true  art  is  myth-making. 

To  this  series  of  pictures  from  Breton  peasant  life 
belongs  also  an  "  Early  Mass  in  Winter,"  which  at 
present  hangs  in  the  "  Little  Palace,"  at  Paris.  In 
the  early  dawn,  beneath  heavy  clouds,  a  few  Breton 

212 


Bright  and  Dark  Painting— Charles  Cottet 

peasant  women,  of  whom  we  get  a  back  view,  are 
proceeding  across  the  flat,  damp  heath  to  an 
insignificant  village  church.  They  wear  the  round 
mantle  with  a  hood,  which  is  usual  in  that  country. 
On  first  glancing  at  these  short,  broad,  black  figures 
without  human  form,  which  look  like  wobbling, 
tightly-filled  coal-sacks,  I  could  not  help  laugh- 
ing aloud.  But  I  observed  in  the  mien  of  other 
observers  composedness,  piety,  and  admiration. 
These  evidently  saw  in  the  picture  only  the  walk 
to  church,  not  the  clumsy  sacks,  always  a  proof 
how  powerfully  Cottet  can  conjure  up  a  mood. 

Once  or  twice  Cottet  has  in  some  measure  proved 
faithless  to  his  usual  dark  style  of  painting,  and 
allowed  himself  to  revel  in  colour.  Thus  in  his 
portrayal  of  a  family  of  Breton  fisherfolk,  when  the 
corpse  of  a  baby  is  laid  on  its  bier.  The  dead  child 
lies  in  its  little  open  coffin,  around  which  four  tapers 
are  burning.  On  both  sides  of  the  bier  the  seven 
or  eight  relatives  stand  grouped :  the  parents,  aunts, 
little  brothers  and  sisters  express,  each  in  his  or  her 
way,  their  grief,  which,  in  the  case  of  the  still  un- 
conscious children  only,  sinks  to  the  level  of  mere 
curiosity.  From  the  coffin  proceed  two  vividly  red 
ribbons  which  stream  across  the  bier  down  to  the 
ground.  Flowers  of  a  similar  furious  red  are  strewn 
over  the  bier.  These  shrill  values  do  not  produce 
exactly  a  fine  and  harmonious  effect  in  the  dark- 
toned  general  atmosphere  with  the  opposite  warm 
yellow  spots  of  the  taper  -  flames.  Moreover,  the 

213 


On  Art  and  Artists 

composition   here    is   also    not    a    happy    one.      It 
is  an  error  to   make  the   pale   little   corpse   of  the 
child   the   centre  of  a    large    picture.      Death   does 
not  attract  the  eyes,  but  repels  them.     It  does  not 
endure   the    rivalry    of   life    unless    it   can    compel 
attention  perhaps  by  means  of  special  melodramatic 
circumstances  or  symbolical  value.     The  glance  turns 
naturally  to  the  living,  feeling,  acting  human  beings, 
and   thus  the   centre   of  the   picture,   which   should 
be  the  keystone  of  the  arch  that  holds  the  composi- 
tion together,  seems  to  be  a  gap.     Christ's  dead  body 
may  be  made  the   centre   of  a  picture.     This  dead 
Saviour  will  always  be,  in  the  beholder's  imagination, 
the  most  living,  the  only  living  thing  in  the  picture. 
So,  too,  the  dead  Lazarus  and  Jairus's  little  daughte*- 
are  suitable  for  the  main  figures  in  a  composition, 
because  these  dead  persons  are  virtually  living,  and 
what   makes    them    interesting    is    not    death,    but 
returning   life.      But   the   innumerable   "  Lessons  in 
Anatomy,"  which  were  a  favourite  subject  with  the 
Dutch   painters    (Aart    Pietersen,    M.   van   Mirevelt, 
Rembrandt,    Adrian    Backer,    Van    Neck,    Cornelis 
Troost,    etc.)    show    how    unsuitable    a    corpse,    to 
which  no  suggestions   beyond   its   visible   condition 
are   united,  is   for  arresting  the   attention.     Even  a 
master  such  as  Rembrandt  is  unable,  in  what  is,  I 
suppose,  the  most  famous  of  all "  Lessons  in  Anatomy," 
to  direct  attention  to  the  dead  body.     In  spite  of 
the  large  space  occupied  by  the  corpse,  we  do  not 
see  it,  but  only  Dr  Tulp  and  his  audience.     Cottet's 

214 


Bright  and  Dark  Painting— Charles  Cottet 

picture  is  the  most  convincing  proof  of  the  impossi- 
bility, in  a  composition  containing  living  persons  also, 
of  laying  the  chief  stress  on  a  dead  one.  The 
psychic  element,  i.e.,  the  mourners'  pain,  Cottet  has, 
however,  expressed  with  gripping  force  and  truth. 
It  is  his  strength  and  glory  that  the  inward,  emotional 
life  preponderates  with  him  so  far  beyond  all 
externals. 

At  the  first  glance  his  "  Breton  Festival "  is  even 
more  repellent  than  the  "  Dead  Baby."  The  line 
of  hills  on  the  horizon,  the  stern  heath,  the  church, 
the  breakfast  laid  on  the  white  tablecloth  in  the 
foreground,  are  certainly  masterly  achievements ; 
but  the  Breton  women  grouped  in  the  open  air 
round  this  still  life  wound  us  with  their  silk  bodices 
of  the  crudest  blue,  green,  and  violet !  It  is  said 
that  Breton  women  actually  dress  in  such  shrill 
colours.  This  may  be  so ;  but  that  does  not  really 
justify  the  crude  reproduction  of  such  brutalities.  It 
is  asserted  that  time  will  subdue  the  overloud  tones 
of  these  violent  colours  and  effect  a  reconciliation 
of  them.  On  this  subject  our  children  or  grand- 
children will  have  an  opinion.  What  we  see  now 
is,  anyhow,  unpleasant.  Has  Cottet  wished  to  show 
that  he  is  able  to  deal  with  something  besides 
asphalt  and  umber?  If  so,  let  him  be  told  that 
his  dark  harmonies  of  brown,  grey,  and  black  are 
more  agreeable  than  all  these  shrill  penny-trumpet 
tones. 

Cottet  stands  at  the  zenith  of  his  life  and  artistic 
215 


On  Art  and  Artists 

capacity.  It  would  be  rash  to  predict  his  further 
development  Whether  he  keeps  to  the  dark  style 
of  painting,  to  which  he  owes  his  reputation,  or  lets 
himself  be  led  away  by  the  strong,  bright,  full 
colours ;  whether  he  remains  faithful  to  Brittany, 
which  seems  with  the  young  race  of  artists  to  take 
the  place  of  the  classic  Italy  of  their  predecessors, 
or  seeks  another  soil  and  another  landscape  to  serve 
as  frames  for  his  men  and  women  of  deep  emotions 
— in  any  case,  Cottet  has  already  secured  himself 
a  place  in  the  History  of  Art ;  deservedly,  too, 
but  chiefly  because  the  change  in  the  valuation  of 
tones  is  bound  up  with  his  name.  It  was  day ;  it 
became  night.  Manet  and  Monet  had  denoted 
dawn;  Cottet  introduced  evening  twilight. 


216 


XII 
PHYSIOGNOMIES   IN   PAINTING 

JOHN  W.  ALEXANDER,  an  American,  possesses  an 
enviable  skill  and  certainty.  He  is  master  of 
the  means  of  expression  belonging  to  his  art,  and 
has  a  trustworthy  feeling  for  the  harmony  of  those 
light,  subdued  colours  called  in  France  "  Liberty " 
shades,  after  the  name  of  an  American  trades- 
man in  the  Avenue  de  1'Opera  who  first  brought 
into  vogue  clothing,  furniture,  and  wall  stuffs  in 
such  peculiarly  anaemic  and  almost  chlorotic  colours. 
With  his  dexterous  draughtsmanship  and  charm- 
ing harmony  of  cool,  diluted  blue,  soft  green,  faint 
pale  yellow  and  delicate  rose,  he  might  possibly 
have  pleased  connoisseurs,  but  could  hardly  have 
attained  world-wide  fame.  He,  therefore,  hit  upon 
painting  women's  portraits  in  amazing  positions. 
He  was  the  inventor  of  acrobatics  in  portraiture. 
His  women  lie  about,  in  orgiastic  contortions,  on 
the  ground  or  on  sofas,  with  their  legs  up  and 
heads  hanging  over  the  edge,  or  with  forms  twisted 
twice  round,  like  a  screw,  or  curled  round  like  a 
sleeping  dog,  astonishing  the  inoffensive  spectator, 

217 


On  Art  and  Artists 

and  suggesting  to  him  of  corrupt  imagination  certain 
lustful  ideas.  The  means  were  effectual.  Alexander 
became  a  first-class  firm,  and  the  cretins  of  criticism 
did  not  fail  to  praise  his  special  knowledge  of,  and 
feeling  for,  the  "  modern  women  of  high-strung  nerves 
and  Satanic  caprices."  Now  Alexander  seems  to  find 
that  he  has  acquired  sufficient  fame,  and  is  abandon- 
ing his  follies.  Among  his  later  pictures  there  very 
rarely  occurs  one  of  which  the  model  betrays  his 
earlier  leaning  to  gymnastics.  The  ladies  he  now 
paints  are  quite  decent  in  their  attitudes,  and 
only,  perhaps,  a  serpentine  movement  in  their 
long,  flowing  garments  reminds  us  still  of  the  old 
gutta-percha  or  snakelike  contortions  of  his  bodies. 
Alexander  has  slipped  through  the  fingers  of  his 
modernistic  critics.  Whilst  they  still  keep  on 
raving  about  his  "  modern  women  with*  high-strung 
nerves  and  Satanic  caprices,"  he  is  painting  pros- 
perously, peacefully,  and  intelligently,  and  can  now 
be  recommended  to  the  most  respectable  bourgeois 
families  to  immortalise  their  matrons. 

AMAN-jEAN  is  a  melancholy  painter,  whose  palette 
has  been  tuned  in  a  minor  key.  He  is  the  guitarist 
of  the  falling  leaf,  twilight,  tapestry-hung  ancestral 
halls,  sombre  Gobelins.  His  pictures  result  from 
the  mood  in  which  a  man  catches  himself  humming 
the  King  of  Thule.  I  do  not  say  that  this  tone 
of  colour  does  not  possess  its  charm.  He  who 
does  not  live  his  life  like  a  thoughtless,  devouring, 

218 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

and  digesting  animal  has,  I  suppose,  on  every 
blessed  day  of  his  existence,  an  hour  in  which  he 
finds  his  own  soul  in  the  subdued  and  faded  palette 
of  Aman-Jean.  It  is,  however,  morbid  to  see  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe  merely  as  old  Gobelins 
in  the  hue  of  twilight  hours.  And  morbid,  too,  is 
the  way  in  which  Aman-Jean  transforms  his  impres- 
sions of  poems  into  a  painter's  view.  I  know,  for 
instance,  a  "  Beatrice "  of  his  which  affords  the 
maximum  of  involuntary  comicality.  Before  an 
artificial-looking  orange-tree,  which  she  overtowers  in 
height,  Dante's  beloved,  with  the  upper  part  of  her 
body  thrown  back,  and  her  stomach  pushed  forward, 
performs  a  sort  of  danse  du  venire.  To  her  girdle 
she  has  a  golden  laurel  garland  hanging,  which, 
as  a  note  of  illumination  in  the  dull  night-hues, 
has  an  excellent  effect  as  valeur  (as  the  French  say), 
but  as  an  object  or  requisite  is  very  comic.  Aman- 
Jean  himself,  with  that  misappreciation  of  subordina- 
tion in  his  pictures,  which  is  so  common  among 
artists,  lays  far  greater  value  on  such  ridiculous 
whims  than  on  his  portraits.  And  yet  it  is  only 
in  these  that  he  shows  with  what  sureness  and 
intensity  he  is  able  to  seize  and  lay  bare  the  most 
inaccessible  and  most  mysteriously  elusive  thing  that 
reality  has  to  exhibit,  viz.,  living  man.  His  "Jules 
Caze"  and  his  "Dampt  the  Sculptor"  belong  to  the 
most  delicate  portrayals  of  men,  just  as  his  "  Paul  Ver- 
laine  "  and  "  Madame  Henri  Martin  "  must  also  remain 
unforgettable  by  every  one  who  has  beheld  them. 

219 


On  Art  and  Artists 

His  portraits,  to  be  sure,  are  not  by  any  means  of 
the  same  value.  There  is,  for  instance,  a  portrait  by 
him  of  a  "  Cossack  Colonel "  that  must  fully  mislead 
in  regard  to  him.  Materiality  is  entirely  lacking  in 
the  full-length  figure  he  has  painted  of  the  Russian 
officer ;  it  is  clapped  flat  on  the  canvas  like  a  pan- 
cake. A  laurel  bush  climbs  from  the  bottom  to  the 
top  of  the  picture  —  one  cannot  say  in  the  back- 
ground, as  the  picture  has  no  depth,  but,  apparently, 
behind  the  man.  The  shrub  seems  painted  on 
the  wall  to  the  height  of  the  head.  It  suddenly 
grows  plastic  before  our  eyes,  and  shoots  its  leaves 
in  front  of  the  colonel's  nose  and  forehead.  By 
this  symbolism  which  scoffs  at  all  the  laws  of 
perspective,  the  painter  evidently  wants  to  suggest 
relations  between  the  warrior  and  fame.  One  can 
only  shrug  one's  shoulders  at  such  puerility. 

He  is  more  and  more  breaking  himself  of  the  habit 
of  regarding  living  models,  and  allows  himself  to 
be  hypnotised  by  the  Prae-Raphaelite  magic  lantern. 
We  might  wish  for  an  Orpheus  to  take  this  noble 
artist  by  the  hand  and  lead  him  back  to  the  light 
from  the  shades  in  which  he  has  lost  himself. 
Perhaps  the  adventure  would  be  more  successful 
than  in  the  case  of  Eurydice. 

ALBERT  BESNARD. — Contemporary  painting  knows 
no  more  harsh  contrasts  than  Puvis  de  Chavannes 
and  Albert  Besnard.  The  former  saw  nothing  in  the 
world  except  spectres  ;  the  latter  sees  only  fireworks. 
Puvis's  eyes  perceived  no  living  colour ;  Besnard's 

220 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

eye  is  in  a  state  as  if  it  had  received  a  violent 
blow  from  a  fist,  in  consequence  of  which  it 
saw  the  proverbial  ten  thousand  candles.  There  is 
nothing  objectionable  about  his  delight  in  colour ; 
on  the  contrary,  any  one  who  is  not  suffering  from 
Daltonism  would  be  delighted  to  be  invited  to  his 
debauch  of  colours.  If  only  Besnard  only  satisfied 
his  taste  in  a  somewhat  nobler  way !  It  pleases 
him  to  introduce  his  dazzling  rockets  into  women's 
faces,  and  there  no  man  of  healthy  taste  will  care 
to  follow  him.  Besnard  has  marvellously  beautiful 
yellow,  orange,  green,  blue,  and  red  on  his  palette. 
He  can  attune  them,  too,  to  a  beautifully  sounding 
harmony ;  but  why  must  he  put  yellow  on  the 
cheeks,  green  on  the  hair,  and  blue  and  orange  on 
the  shoulders  in  his  portraits?  Why  must  he  so 
portray  his  model  as  if  it  were  streaked  with  luminous 
paint  or  bathed  in  a  stream  of  light  that  has  flowed 
through  a  coloured  glass  window?  His  mastery  of 
drawing  and  modelling  certainly  makes  his  colouring- 
run-mad  somewhat  more  endurable,  but  it  does  not 
justify  his  not  searching  for  the  tumult  of  colour 
which  he  loves  in  actual  life  (where,  after  all,  he  might 
with  some  effort  find  them),  but  chasing  them  into 
actual  life  without  any  regard  or  thought. 

In  the  salons  of  late  years,  Albert  Besnard  pursues 
a  curious  policy.  Near  one  or  more  aggressively 
stupid  works,  he  exhibits  a  portrait  or  painting  which 
is  amazingly  rational.  In  this  there  is  method, 
unmistakably.  It  is  a  sort  of  self-defence.  Besnard 

221 


On  Art  and  Artists 

seems,  from  his  canvasses,  to  address  the  visitors 
to  the  "  Salon  "  in  these  words :  "  You  see  that  I  am 
in  private  life  quite  a  sane  individual  and  correct 
painter,  who  is  as  much  the  master  of  his  art  as 
anybody  in  the  world.  The  other  rubbish  is  for  the 
fools  of  modernism.  For  those  I  am  bound  at 
times  to  play  the  Jack  Pudding,  but  you  need 
not,  however,  worry  yourself  about  that.  Once,  for 
instance,  this  painted  plea  was  the  life-sized  portrait 
of  Denys  Cochin,  the  nationalist  deputy  for  Paris — 
an  excellent  work,  laborious,  powerfully  drawn,  and 
irreproachable  in  colour,  which  reminds  one  of 
Herkomer's  best  style.  His  clownery,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  a  huge  picture  which  Besnard  calls  "  The 
Isle  of  the  Blessed."  A  bushy  shore  in  the  fore- 
ground, then  a  wide  expanse  of  water  which  looks 
partly  like  sand,  partly  like  wine-soup,  and  only 
in  the  remotest  degree  like  natural  water.  Finally, 
in  the  background,  a  flat  shore  with  the  outlines 
of  a  white  town  that  stick,  as  if  cut  out  of  paper, 
on  the  blue  horizon.  Across  the  level  sea  where  it 
is  reddest,  glides  a  skiff  in  which  stands,  in  the 
attitude  of  the  Saviour  calming  the  tempest,  an 
enigmatical  figure  in  red,  flowing  garments,  and  with 
the  countenance  of  an  Indian  chief,  surrounded  by 
a  grass-green  and  wine-dreg-coloured  woman  and 
a  monkey-like  rower  of  sulphur-yellow  hue.  On  the 
bank  young  maidens  tarry  for  the  new  arrivals,  their 
light  raiment,  blown  bell-shaped  by  the  breeze,  repro- 
ducing a  motif  "of  Botticelli.  Between  the  trees  groups 

222 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

of  bright-coloured  figures  are  camped,  and  on  the 
steps  of  a  hill  sit  or  lounge  flute-playing  fauns, 
one  of  whom  has  the  typical  head  of  a  retired 
French  colonel.  The  women  in  the  skiff  are  dis- 
tinguished by  distorted,  acrobatic  attitudes,  which 
no  model  could  sustain  for  ten  minutes  without 
supports  and  props.  On  principle,  no  two  figures 
are  placed  side  by  side  without  being  clad  in 
the  most  opposite  colours  in  the  spectrum.  This 
arrangement  of  colours  suggests  the  thought  that 
none  of  the  figures  must  move  away  from  the  side 
of  the  others,  and  none  could  step  into  another 
group,  as  otherwise  the  harmonies  intended  by 
Besnard  would  be  destroyed.  That  seems  boldly 
and  freely  fanciful,  but  is  soberly  and  painfully 
subtilised.  It  is  a  mechanical  game  with  contrasts 
of  colours,  devoid  of  purpose  and  even  of  the  charm 
of  any  sense  of  colour.  Albert  Besnard  has,  in  his 
later  days,  evidently  discovered  Bocklin,  or  even  has 
only  heard  him  extolled  and  wants  now  to  make 
his  own  Bocklin.  The  fauns — up  to  their  heads — the 
maidens  on  the  shore,  the  blue  sea,  the  white  town 
in  the  distance,  are  descended  in  the  direct  line 
from  the  pictures  of  the  Bale  master.  But  Besnard 
has  imitated  the  details  as  any  one  may  copy  a 
writing  which  he  cannot  read.  "  The  link  of  the 
spirit  is  all  that  it  lacks." 

JEAN   BOLDINI  is  one  of   the  most  remarkable 
painters  of  female  portraits   in   our   time.     In  these 

223 


On  Art  and  Artists 

he  makes  himself  most  solicitous  to  unite  together 
the  screw  lines  of  Alexander's  demoniacs  twisting 
in  hysterical  convulsions,  and  Zorn's  bold,  sun- 
beam dances.  The  faculty  of  tumult  hardly  any 
one  among  contemporaries  possesses  like  this  un- 
commonly skilful  Italian.  His  pictures  seem  to  fly 
up  as  from  a  bursting  bomb.  Every  fibre  in  his 
women  palpitates  and  throbs.  One  of  his  women 
sits  half  naked,  just  as  if  she  had  torn,  in  a  rage, 
the  clothes  off  her  body,  on  a  lion's  skin,  and 
he  has  made  the  head  and  skin  of  this  common 
floor-rug  bristle  with  such  an  expression  of  cruel 
savageness,  that  you  jump  back  in  terror  from 
the  expected  spring  of  the  bloodthirsty  monster. 
Another  woman  wears  on  her  arm  and  shoulders 
a  feather  boa  with  wonderful  convolutions,  which 
seems  to  rustle  from  her  in  excitement  like  an 
eagle.  A  third  lady  stands  in  a  door  frame — she 
seems  to  be  about  to  spring  forward  with  the  leap 
of  a  tiger.  She  wears  one  of  those  very  modern, 
low-cut  evening  dresses,  which  are  fastened  over 
the  shoulders  only  by  a  tiny  chain  ;  her  bust  looks 
as  if  it  were  laid  bare  because  her  dress  was  torn 
from  her  body  in  a  brutal  struggle  with  a  satyr. 
There  is  an  atmosphere  about  this  woman  of  all 
hysterical  convulsions,  St  Vitus's  dance,  or  defence 
with  teeth  and  claws  against  lawless  attempts. 
There  is  a  story  about  sorcerers  and  witches  who 
through  a  touch  give  another  shape  to  men.  This 
changing  of  skin  is  not  practised  only  in  fairy 

224 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

tales.  Certain  portrait  painters  also  have  it  in  their 
power.  Old  Cabanel  transformed  the  rich,  fat  wives 
of  wholesale  merchants  and  owners  of  house  property, 
whom  he  painted  for  30,000  francs,  into  goddesses 
of  the  old  Greek  mythology.  Boldini  by  a  spell 
transforms  the  ladies  who  trust  themselves  to  him 
into  maenads,  mad  women,  evil  witches  that  ride  of 
a  night  on  broomsticks  to  their  Sabbath.  I  do  not 
believe  that  people  pay  him  30,000  francs  for  that ; 
but  if  a  lady  even  disburses  a  centime  to  be  repre- 
sented by  Boldini  as  a  Bacchante  or  a  Vampire,  she 
must  be  as  much  a  victim  to  neurosity  as  Boldini 
makes  her  out  to  be. 

WILLIAM  BOUGUEREAU.  —  The  contempt  of 
Bouguereau  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom  in  art. 
That  everybody  knows  who  has  occupied  himself 
with  contemporary  painting  otherwise  than  as  a 
picture-dealer.  Among  the  long-haired  ones  who 
dwell  on  the  mountain  land  of  Montmartre,  no  name 
conveys  a  worse  insult.  He  who  wants  to  make  an 
impression  on  the  Botticelli  ladies  when  visiting  the 
"  Salon,"  must  make  a  grimace  of  sudden,  severe 
nausea  when  he  comes  across  a  painting  by  this 
"  manufacturer  of  perfumery  labels."  On  the  other 
hand,  Bouguereau  has  managed  to  collect  in  his  head 
in  a  coronet  of  all  sorts  all  the  honours  that  blossom 
for  an  artist  in  France.  He  is  Commander  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour  and  Member  of  the  Institute ;  he 
gained  the  Prix  de  Rome,  and  has  pocketed  all  the 

225  P 


On  Art  and  Artists 

medals  that  the  Salons  and  Universal  Exhibitions 
had  to  bestow.  His  works  fetch  the  highest  prices  in 
the  market,  and  if  no  Parisian  artist  finds  purchasers, 
the  big  pork  butcher  of  Chicago,  that  painters' 
Providence,  to  whom  in  their  prayers  they  turn  their 
countenances,  always  has  gold  for  Bouguereau.  The 
deplorable  Philistine,  who  would  also  very  much  like 
to  have  a  little  share  in  the  aesthetic  enjoyments  of 
this  world,  tears  his  hair  and  groans:  "Where  is  truth?" 
The  Chat  Noir  treats  Bouguereau  as  a  buffoon,  but 
the  Academy  erects  altars  to  him.  Criticism  scoffs, 
but  America  pays.  And,  however  readily  the 
Philistine  yields  to  the  appearance  of  daring 
modernity,  if  he  listens  to  the  voice  of  his  own 
heart,  he  notices  to  his  embarrassment  that 
Bouguereau,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  pleases  him.  He 
gazes  with  secret  delight  at  his  "  Cupid  and  Psyche," 
his  "Pearl,"  and  "Innocence,"  his  "Oblation  to 
Cupid,"  his  "  Wasps'  Nest,"  his  "  Cupid  mauiM?  his 
"  Holy  Women  at  the  Tomb."  It  is  always  the 
same :  a  sweet  maiden,  or  even  several,  a  well-built 
youth  of  rosy  body  and  slender  limbs,  laughing  little 
mouths  with  pearly  teeth,  blooming  cheeks,  snowy 
bosoms  and  rosy  fingers — all  lovely,  all  a  delight  to 
the  eye.  The  Philistine  wriggles  under  the  decree  of 
fashion,  which  forces  him  to  find  these  charming  things 
horrible,  and  his  troubled  look  frames  the  question 
that  his  mouth  dares  not  utter:  "Why?  Why?" 

I   think    we    are    doing   a    good   work    when    we 
answer  him  calmly  and  in  a  friendly  manner,  without 

226 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

exaggeration  or  cheap  witticisms  which  neither  explain 
nor  prove  anything,  not  even  necessarily  the  sincerity 
of  the  witling.  Bouguereau  pleases  the  insufficiently 
trained  eye,  because  he  paints  prettily ;  but  in  art 
prettiness  is  the  direct  opposite  of  the  beautiful,  for 
it  is  untruth,  since  a  conscience  originally  delicate  or 
happily  trained  only  feels  truth  to  be  beautiful. 

Prettiness  is  necessarily  untruth,  for  it  is  that 
which  is  conceived  without  trouble,  which  excites 
no  opposition,  which  compels  no  strain  on  the 
attention  and  no  adaptation  on  the  part  of  the 
spectator  to  the  peculiarity  of  the  artist.  Its  effect 
is  merely  the  effect  of  what  meets  the  spectator's 
pre-existent  thoughts  or  feelings  completely.  This 
pre-existing  element  is  not,  however,  the  result  of 
collective  observation  and  strong  feeling,  but  the 
dissipated  precipitate  of  the  most  fugitive,  indifferent 
perception,  which  is  totally  unfitted  to  obtrude  into 
the  world  of  phenomena. 

The  artist  whose  goal  is  prettiness,  does  not 
glance  at  reality,  but  at  the  soul  of  the  crowd 
which  he  wishes  to  please.  He  does  not  portray 
what  he  sees,  and  what  makes  an  impression  on 
him,  but  what  suits  the  feeble,  inexact  concepts 
which  the  average  man  forms  of  things.  He  is  a 
courtier  of  the  crowd  ;  he  flatters  their  shallowness 
and  incapacity.  He  wants  them  to  say,  with  a 
self-satisfied  smile :  "  This  man  is  a  great  artist, 
for  he  has  the  same  way  of  looking  at  things  as 
ourselves."  Prettiness  is,  in  lyric  poetry,  rhyming 

237 


On  Art  and  Artists 

"  love  "  with  "  dove,"  "  heart "  and  "  part "  ;  in  drama, 
it  is  rewarding  the  good  characters  with  advantageous 
marriages  and  lucrative  posts,  and  making  the  wicked 
fall  into  the  pit  they  have  dug  for  others.  For  this 
is  just  what  the  public  expects  ;  such  is  the  world- 
picture  which  the  world  has  arranged  for  itself,  and 
it  is  grateful  to  the  poet  that  he  does  not  force 
it  to  rectify  its  comfortable  way  of  thinking. 

In  the  plastic  arts  prettiness  is  the  average  or 
typical.  Bouguereau  paints  a  pattern,  not  a  person. 
He  has  a  canon  to  which  he  holds  ;  and  if  he  would 
only  go  so  far  as  to  look  at  real  human  beings,  and 
had  to  admit  that  nature  does  not  act  according  to 
his  canon,  he  would  certainly  say :  "  So  much  the 
worse  for  nature." 

Superficiality  always  confuses  prettiness  with  the 
ideal.  One  cannot  fail  to  see  that  prettiness  lacks 
exactness.  This  inexactness  is,  however,  praised 
as  an  improvement  on  reality :  the  master  of 
prettiness  understands  nature  better  than  she 
understands  herself.  He  guesses  what  she  would, 
but  cannot  always,  do,  and  comes  with  his  superior 
creative  power  to  help  the  poor  incapable.  The 
truth  is  that  prettiness  is  the  exact  reverse  of  the 
ideal ;  for  the  ideal  is  the  presentiment  of  future 
developments :  prettiness  the  pompous  repetition  of 
what  is  commonplace.  The  idealist  is  impelled  by 
a  restless  longing  after  novelty  to  represent ;  he 
seeks  in  invisible  germs  which  the  average  soul 
does  not  perceive  to  detect  the  later  glory  of 

228 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

blossom.  The  painter  of  prettiness  shows  scant  satis- 
faction in  attainment,  and  his  creation  is  nothing 
but  a  sleepy  reminiscence  of  impressions  he  is 
accustomed  to. 

The  chief  harm  done  by  prettiness  in  art  is  that 
it  confirms  the  multitude  in  their  dulness  instead  of 
arousing  them  from  it.  What  the  "  man  in  the 
street"  feels  in  presence  of  a  work  of  Bouguereau's 
is  self-  complacent  pleasure  at  the  artist  agreeing 
with  him.  He  will  expect  the  same  feeling  also 
from  real  works  of  art,  and  be  disappointed  if  he 
fails  to  find  it.  Pretty  paintings  deaden  the  mind 
of  the  average  man  for  powerful  works,  which  teach 
men  to  see,  educate  eyes,  operate  for  cataract,  and 
heal  colour-blindness,  are  keys  to  the  hidden  sense 
of  lines  of  movement,  interpret  the  symbolism  of 
form,  and  point  the  way  to  unknown  beauty.  The 
bloodthirsty  backwoodsman  of  Montmartre  is,  there- 
fore, right  to  think  little  or  nothing  of  Bouguereau, 
and  to  scalp  him  ;  and  the  Philistine  who  expects  to 
elevate  and  enrich  his  mind  by  art  must  make  the 
sacrifice  of  renouncing  the  cheap  pleasure  which  the 
engaging  banality  of  prettiness  procures  him. 

If  Bouguereau  has  anything  personal  to  say,  he 
can  say  it  no  worse  than  many  another.  His 
"Portrait  of  Himself"  in  the  velvet  painting-jacket 
is  sincere,  and  at  any  rate  strives  to  be  honest. 
It  is  true  that  here,  too,  he  has  not  been  quite 
able  to  overcome  his  habit  of  embellishing,  and 
his  cheeks  are  distressingly  rosy.  One  could 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

not  expect  from  him  the  almost  terrifying  in- 
exorableness  with  which  a  David  has  confessed 
the  dreadful  grimace  of  his  face  paralysed  on  one 
side,  and  a  Rembrandt,  in  his  old  age,  the  puffiness 
of  his  features  and  the  wateriness  of  his  eyes.  These 
men  had  such  a  pride  in  truthfulness  that,  in  their 
anxiety  not  to  be  partial,  they  felt  almost  hostile 
to  themselves,  and  tried,  and  judged  themselves 
accordingly.  Bouguereau  does  not  understand  why 
he  should  treat  himself  more  ill-temperedly  than 
his  Cupids  and  nymphs,  and  smiles  good-humouredly 
at  himself. 

FRANK  BRANGWYN.  —  This  young  Englishman, 
born  in  Belgium,  is  a  painter  of  the  great  class 
from  which  the  kings  of  art  spring.  In  his  delight 
in  colour,  he  reminds  us  of  Delacroix  in  his  Sturm 
und  Drang  period  ;  in  the  dauntlessness  with  which 
he  wields  the  brush,  of  Franz  Hals  himself,  the 
boldest  fighter  with  this  weapon  that  ever  lived 
up  to  now.  His  two  first  works  exhibited  in 
the  Paris  Salon,  "A  Sailor's  Funeral"  and  "All 
Hands  Aloft,"  instantly  called  attention  to  him. 
His  "Buccaneers"  was  a  veritable  revelation.  In  a 
boat,  floating  on  the  blue-black  tide  of  the  Carribean 
Sea,  row  some  life-sized  fellows  clad  in  variegated 
material,  their  heads  bound  with  bright  red  cloths. 
In  the  glowing,  tropical  sun  that  swelters  down  on 
them,  everything  is  a  blinding,  bright  flame :  the 
foam,  wet  oars,  the  ship's  planks,  the  clothing  and 
headgear  of  the  people.  The  brown  cut-throats  get 

230 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

in  this  noonday  glory  an  almost  superhuman  relief, 
and  in  their  savage  countenances  a  calm  conscious- 
ness of  their  formidableness  is  revealed,  which  even 
in  the  picture  has  the  effect  of  a  challenge  to  mortal 
combat.  A  year  later  he  exhibited  "  Goatherds," 
likewise  life-sized,  and  likewise  plunged  in  the 
noonday  glow  of  a  southern  sky,  and,  in  addition, 
a  reposefully  coloured  and  marvellously  deep  night- 
piece,  i(  The  Three  Holy  Kings  offering  the  Infant 
Jesus  Gold,  Incense,  and  Myrrh."  His  ability  was 
further  enhanced  by  a  "  Market  on  the  Shore "  and 
a  "  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes." 

The  "  Market  on  the  Shore "  is  held  in  a  Barbary 
harbour.  Little  bright-coloured  carpets  are  spread 
on  the  yellow  loamy  sand,  where  negroes  in  brown 
and  green-lined  haiks  and  burnooses  lie  squatting. 
They  are  surrounded  by  poorer  people  in  fantastic 
rags,  with  red  tarboosh  on  long,  clean-shaven  Hamitic 
skulls.  Beyond,  three  ships  extend  their  prows  over 
the  flat  beach,  and  in  the  background,  on  the 
further  side  of  a  strip  of  water,  we  get  a  glance, 
through  a  gateway  with  three  pointed  arches,  at 
the  dim  throng  of  a  mysterious  Mohammedan  town. 

The  "  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes "  takes  place 
in  the  evening.  The  fishing-boat  rocks  softly  on 
the  almost  oil-smooth,  dark  blue  mirror  of  the  Lake 
of  Genesareth,  on  the  shallow  valleys  and  crests 
of  whose  waves  the  setting  sun's  nearly  horizontal 
beams  strew  leaves  and  strips  of  thin  gold.  Four 
fishermen  are  busy  hauling  in  with  powerful  move- 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

ments  the  net  heavy  with  their  catch.  Behind  their 
vessel,  a  green,  flat-bottomed  boat  with  sails,  steered 
by  a  disciple,  carries  the  Saviour,  veiled  in  the  gloam- 
ing, across  the  water. 

Religious  subjects  have  an  especial  attraction  for 
Brangwyn.  In  his  great  picture,  "  The  Scoffers," 
he  shows  a  man  with  the  bearded  curly  head  of 
an  enthusiast,  fastened  to  a  pillory.  The  scene, 
as  is  usual  with  Brangwyn,  is  an  Eastern  town. 
A  crowd,  which  is  amusing  by  its  negro  and 
Moorish  types  and  their  charming  garments  and 
rags,  presses  on  the  prisoner,  who  is  wearing  the 
strange  garb  of  a  Western  artisan,  and  reviles  him 
with  the  words  from  their  mouths  opened  in  sneering 
laughter ;  with  the  glances  of  their  stupid,  malicious 
eyes ;  with  the  gesture  of  their  forked  and  pointed 
ringers.  Pity  is  mingled  with  curiosity  only  in  the 
case  of  a  handsome,  brown,  young  maiden  in  the 
foreground,  who,  with  a  noble  water-pot  on  her  head, 
evidently  returning  home  from  the  spring,  remains 
standing  in  order  to  gaze  at  the  scene.  You  may 
understand  the  story  as  you  please.  Perhaps  it  is 
a  foreign  socialist  or  anarchist,  who  tried  to  preach 
his  doctrines  there,  and  to  whom  the  authorities  are 
giving  short  shrift,  and  whose  only  reward  now  is  the 
mockery  of  the  stupid  crowd  to  whom  he  intended 
to  bring  a  message  of  salvation.  Perhaps  the 
incident  has  a  deeper  and  more  solemn  sense,  and 
is  the  subjective,  half-touched-up,  half-modernised 
representation  of  the  mocking  of  Christ  when  He 

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Physiognomies  in  Painting 

was  bound  to  the  pillar  in  order  to  undergo  flagella- 
tion. Whether  the  drama  is  conceived  from  a  socio- 
logical or  theological  standpoint,  it  is  of  supreme 
power.  The  great  pain  of  the  altruist  who  sacrifices 
himself  for  mankind,  and  sees  his  sacrifice  despised  ; 
the  great  sin  of  the  populace  that  is  thoughtlessly 
guilty  of  the  most  horrible  ingratitude,  are  strikingly 
expressed.  And  in  what  form  is  this  rich  spiritual 
and  moral  purport  clothed  ?  Such  repose  and  nobility 
in  varied  colour ;  such  witchery  in  the  flat  triad  of 
dark  yellow,  reddish  purple,  and  deep  blue ;  such 
amazing  sureness  in  modelling  by  means  of  mere 
patches  of  colour  without  outlines,  it  has  not  been 
my  lot  to  meet  with  twice  in  contemporary  painting. 
Neither  must  I  leave  his  "St  Simon  Stylites" 
unnoticed.  The  saint  is  sitting,  with  his  back 
resting  against  a  pole,  on  the  platform  of  his 
lofty  pillar.  On  the  other  edge  of  the  platform, 
ascending  by  a  ladder,  appears  a  priest  in  mass 
vestments,  accompanied  by  a  deacon,  in  order  to 
administer  Holy  Communion  to  the  Stylite,  who  is 
apparently  dying.  The  story,  however,  is  a  matter 
of  indifference.  It  is  the  wonderful  harmony  of 
colours  that  makes  this  picture  so  expressive.  It 
is  late  in  the  day ;  twilight  is  approaching ;  the 
last  ray  of  sunlight  is  finely  sprinkled  through  the 
air  around  the  figures  above  the  roofs  of  the  Syrian 
town,  from  which  arises  a  transparent  cloud,  so  thin 
that  it  is  rather  a  breath,  an  exhalation,  than  a 
vapour,  and  is  more  surmised  than  seen.  A  flight  of 

233 


On  Art  and  Artists 

swallows  glides  past  the  saint,  and  the  birds,  with 
their  arrow-swift  and  pleasing  motions,  observed 
in  the  precise  Japanese  way,  greatly  help  to  pro- 
duce an  impression  of  height  and  airiness,  which 
Brangwyn  attains  chiefly  by  his  art  of  distributing 
light,  and  his  eerie  perspective. 

Brangwyn  fixes  in  his  pictures  all  the  magic  of 
noon  and  midnight.  He  shows  his  figures  either 
flushed  by  the  quivering  heat  of  the  full  burning 
sun,  or  covered  with  a  veil  of  half-transparent  dark- 
ness. Both  illuminations  have  the  peculiarity  of 
suppressing  all  subsidiary  work  and  letting  only 
what  is  essential  remain.  The  face  or  body  of  a 
man  steeped  in  sun  rays  becomes  almost  transparent. 
Behind  the  skin  and  the  connecting  tissues  which 
we  perceive  only  as  a  covering,  the  muscles  and 
bones  come  forth.  The  intense  brightness  prepares 
a  body  almost  as  the  dissecting  knife  of  anatomy. 
Darkness  has  a  similar  effect ;  it  blots  out  the 
connections  and  transitions,  and  only  accentuates 
the  strong  lines  of  construction.  Only  diffused  light 
gives  an  equal  value  to  all  the  parts  of  a  surface  ; 
it  shows  all  and  explains  nothing.  Direct  light, 
on  the  other  hand,  just  like  darkness,  graduates 
phenomena,  makes  us  recognise  at  the  first  glance 
what  is  external  ornamentation  and  what  are  the 
supports  and  timber. 

Brangwyn  is  an  impressionist  in  the  best  sense  of 
the  word,  a  perfect  representative  of  what  Impres- 
sionism contains  that  is  justifiable.  He  does  not 

234 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

stop  over  trivialities  and  accessories.  He  sees  only 
the  essential  in  phenomena,  but  this  he  sees  with 
infallible  certainty  and  intensity.  A  feature  which 
marks  exhaustively  the  direction,  purpose,  and  force 
of  a  movement ;  a  spot  of  colour  that  challenges 
and  fixes  the  eye,  as  a  sudden  stroke  of  a  bell  does 
the  ear — these  are  the  optical  elements  which  he 
grasps,  and  with  delightful  simplicity,  weight,  and 
carelessness,  and,  as  it  were,  in  student  fashion, 
throws  on  the  canvas  "straight  from  the  wrist." 
The  spectator  finds  once  more  in  the  picture  exactly 
the  component  parts  of  the  phenomenon  which  in 
the  actual  thing  would  alone  excite  and  fix  his 
attention,  and,  corresponding  to  his  psychological 
habit,  he  supplements  the  indications  of  the  painting 
by  pictures  from  his  own  memory,  till  it  becomes  a 
perfect  copy  of  the  real  thing,  which  then  includes 
also  all  the  subsidiary  matters  either  merely  hinted 
at,  or  quite  passed  over  by  the  painter. 

Brangwyn  is  one  of  those  rare  gifted  virtuosi  who 
does  not  need  to  draw.  The  line  does  not  subsist 
for  him,  just  as  it  does  not  subsist  in  nature.  He 
models  with  light  and  colour.  He  puts  spots  irregu- 
larly near  one  another,  little  and  big,  long  and 
short,  angular  and  round,  bright  and  dark,  white 
and  coloured  ;  and  from  these  spots,  from  this  mosaic 
of  correctly  -  felt  effects  of  light,  he  builds  up  the 
phenomenon  in  space  with  incomparably  genuine 
and  intense  corporeality.  Our  judgment  adds  the 
lines  which  the  painter  has  never  drawn,  as  it  does 
when  looking  at  the  actual  thing.  We  have  here 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

the  optical  elements  themselves,  which  are  perceived 
by  the  retina  of  the  eye  as  mere  gradations  of  light, 
but  are  apprehended  and  interpreted  by  the  higher 
centres  as  coloured  and  plastic  phenomena.  Such 
a  way  of  painting  demands  infallible  certainty  of 
sight  and  trustworthy  obedience  of  the  hand,  else 
it  leads  to  bankruptcy  in  art. 

PAUL  CEZANNE. — He  was  one  of  the  protagonists 
and  pioneers  of  Naturalism.  He  was  with  Claude 
Monet,  Caillebotte,  and  the  other  Impressionists 
an  interesting  subverter ;  with  Zola  he  was  for  a 
moment  a  victor,  and  is  now  vanquished,  although, 
probably,  he  will  not  admit  it.  A  barefooted 
Masaniello,  whom  a  successful  revolution  of  the 
rabble  carries  to  the  top  and  lodges  in  the  king's 
palace,  but  who  has  very  soon  to  exchange  his 
purple  mantle  for  his  hereditary  rags.  Fortunately, 
the  lot  of  overthrown  art-revolutionaries  is  not  so 
horrible  as  Masaniello's ;  they  do  not  end  under 
the  executioner's  hand. 

Cezanne  has  one  thing  in  his  favour  which  pre- 
possesses us  for  him,  i.e.,  his  uprightness.  It  is 
his  nature  that  ugliness  has  for  him  an  attraction. 
He  sees  only  what  is  abnormal,  unpleasant,  and 
repulsive  in  actual  life.  If  he  paints  a  house,  it  must 
be  warped,  and  threaten  to  tumble  down  soon.  If  he 
portrays  a  human  being,  the  latter  has  a  distorted 
face,  apparently  paralysed  on  one  side,  and  a  deeply 
depressed  or  stupid  expression.  Every  model  that 

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Physiognomies  in  Painting 

submits  himself  to  him  is  put  in  some  sort  of  convict's 
dress.  Here  is  a  female  portrait.  A  withered,  dried- 
up  face,  mud-bedaubed  clothes  that  look  as  if  they 
had  been  trailed  through  the  gutter.  Doubtless  a 
"  professional "  who  at  a  raid  was  accommodated  in 
"  Black  Maria,"  and,  after  a  night  in  the  cells  of  the 
police  station,  discharged  ?  Nothing  of  the  sort.  She 
is  a  respectable  lady  of  the  upper  middle-class.  This 
man  with  the  trouble-distorted  countenance  and  the 
greasy  felt  hat  and  overcoat  is  perhaps  a  starveling 
from  Bohemia,  a  broken-down  creature,  ruined  artist 
or  writer?  Most  certainly  not.  He  is  a  well-to-do 
person  of  independent  means.  It  is  curious  to  me 
how  any  one  can  allow  himself  of  his  own  accord 
to  be  painted  by  Cezanne,  unless  it  were  done  in 
a  contrite,  penitential  mood  as  a  penance.  To  be 
sure,  one  cannot  be  angry  with  him,  for  he  does 
not  treat  himself  any  better  than  his  other  victims. 
He  has  painted  portraits  of  himself  which  would  be 
grossly  libellous  if  another  had  painted  them.  In 
truth  he  is  not  vain,  for  he  sees  himself  as  he 
represents  himself  in  these  pictures.  And  his 
morose  eye  disfigures  not  only  faces,  heads,  and 
raiment,  but  also  the  rest.  Heine  assures  us  that  "  A 
woman's  body  is  a  poem."  He  would  not  dare  to 
sustain  this  statement  if  he  were  to  see  Cezanne's 
"Three  Naked  Women  before  the  Bath."  Such 
nudities  are  really  immoral,  and  shriek,  not  for  a 
discreet  fig-leaf,  but  for  a  nine-fold  covering  of  cloth 
and  fur. 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

BLAISE  DESGOFFES. — This  painter,  who  died  in 
1902,  was  an  incomparable  copier  of  still  life;  for 
indeed  there  exists  a  still  and  secret  life  in  the 
productions  of  the  artist's  hand,  as  an  eye  lovingly 
steeped  in  form  and  beauty  of  colour  sees  them. 
Desgoffes  was  great  in  little  pictures,  which  rendered 
splendid  things  of  gold  and  enamel,  of  rock  crystal, 
jasper  and  chalcedony,  trinkets  and  precious  stones, 
lace  and  embroidery  on  velvet  and  silk,  carved  and 
polished  ebony  in  insurpassable  perfection.  There 
is  a  school  which  very  contemptuously  calls  these 
pictures  bodegones.  That  is  the  disdainful  Spanish 
expression  both  for  a  cookshop  and  for  daubed 
representations  of  vulgar  eatables  such  as  sausages, 
smoked  herrings,  and  cheese  made  from  whey. 
Copying  the  productions  of  human  hands  should 
be  unworthy  of  an  artist.  Only  what  is  living,  nay, 
only  human  life,  should  be  justifiable.  But  that  is 
too  narrow  a  conception.  Certainly  the  highest 
mission  of  all  human  art  is  the  portrayal  of  men 
and  women  ;  and  what  is  not  itself  human  becomes 
artistic  in  proportion  as  it  gains  relation  to  humanity 
by  means  of  secret  anthropomorphic  animation  and 
spiritualisation.  But  he  who  demands  harshly  and 
dogmatically  that  the  human  figure  should  be 
treated  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else,  relegates 
a  Hondekoeter,  a  Landseer,  a  Rosa  Bonheur  to  the 
second  class,  and  denies  a  Desgoffes  the  title  of 
artist,  which  is  sheer  nonsense.  I  do  not  know  if 
there  is  a  precedence  in  art,  or  any  other  precedence 

238 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

than  that  of  the  ability  to  express  and  transmit 
the  life  of  emotion.  Anyhow,  a  man  stands  very 
high  who  understood  how  to  translate  into  painting 
the  optical  peculiarities  of  choice  woods,  metals, 
stones,  and  textures  better  than  any  painter  before 
him. 


L£oN  FR^D^RIC  amazes  like  an  anachronism  ; 
in  him  lives  the  soul  of  a  primitive.  Thus  the  Van 
Eycks,  Roger  van  der  Weydens,  and  Hans  Memlings 
regarded  the  world  and  man.  That  is,  however,  not 
a  sort  of  affected,  antique  skill,  as  in  the  English 
Prae-Raphaelites,  and  their  Continental  imitators, 
but  genuine,  unconscious  atavism,  the  purity  of 
which  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  FrddeYic  paints 
no  masquerades,  but  only  nude,  human  limbs,  or 
contemporary  types  of  the  people  in  the  miserable 
working  garb  of  our  days.  If  they  appear  like 
figures  out  of  mediaeval  ballads  or  folk-stories,  it 
is  because  Frederic  feels  them  so.  He  is  an  out 
and  out  Fleming  :  mystical  like  his  countrymen 
Ruysbroek,  Suyskens,  etc.  ;  and,  besides,  delighting 
in  form,  like  the  builders  of  the  Belgian  cathedrals 
and  guildhalls  ;  in  love  with  life,  like  the  feasters 
and  dancers  of  the  Flemish  kermesses  ;  honest  and 
conscientious  in  his  work,  like  an  old  guild-master 
of  the  time  of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  ;  brooding 
and  earnest,  like  a  Beguine  or  a  Lollard. 

Fre'de'ric  does  not  actually  copy,  but  he  is  curiously 
vivid  in  his  recollection  of  what  he  has  seen.  The 

239 


On  Art  and  Artists 

old  Low-German  and  Flemish  masters,  whose  outlook 
on  the  world  he  shares,  hover  before  him.  From 
the  Low-German  artists  he  has  his  naive,  brick-red 
flesh  tone  and  the  painfully  conscientious  kind  of 
workmanship,  which  neglects  no  wrinkle  in  the  skin 
or  curl  in  the  hair ;  from  Memling,  his  loving 
accuracy  in  treating  all  accessory  work  —  flowers, 
ground,  clothes,  and  utensils.  Sprinkling  the  whole 
canvas  with  equally  finished  details,  chiefly  luxuriant 
plants,  is  common  to  Fre"d6ric  and  all  the  Prae- 
Raphaelites.  The  pictures  of  this  school,  even  if 
they  take  their  subjects  chiefly  from  the  fourth 
dimension,  are  optically  of  two  dimensions.  They 
are  only  surfaces.  They  do  not  understand  per- 
spective, and,  therefore,  cannot  shade  off  a  middle 
distance  or  background.  Everything  lies  in  one  and 
the  same  plane  and  is  treated  with  the  same  clearness 
and  precision.  In  the  accuracy  with  which  they 
render  every  little  stone,  every  texture,  and  plant, 
the  Prae-Raphaelites  have  no  equals.  If,  in  addition 
to  this,  they  could  paint  human  beings  also,  they 
would  deserve  unstinted  praise,  at  any  rate,  as 
draughtsmen,  if  not  as  colourists. 

Frederic  feels  the  sacredness  of  his  art  profoundly, 
as  do  few  other  painters  of  the  present  day.  He 
seems  to  himself  a  priest.  It  is  an  external,  but  a 
characteristic  one:  he  paints  hardly  anything  but 
triptychs,  which  he  regards,  to  a  certain  extent,  as 
altar-pieces  of  a  philosophical  religion ;  and  what 
he  portrays  is  always  a  sort  of  pathetic  symbol,  from 

240 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

which  there  comes  a  sound  like  verses  from  the 
Bible  or  Vedic  hymns.  His  symbols  are  not  always 
clear,  but  it  is  not  his  fault  that  painting  is  not 
a  fit  expression  of  brief  syntheses  of  long  trains 
of  thought,  or  ethical  and  philosophical  abstrac- 
tions. At  most  it  is  his  fault  that  he  does 
not  feel  this.  His  triptych,  the  "Golden  Age," 
is,  for  instance,  a  view  such  as  Ovid  might  have 
described  if  he  had  lived  in  a  Belgian  district 
among  Flemish  people.  Frederic  relates  the  history 
of  one  day  of  his  happy  race :  how  human 
creatures  of  all  gradations  of  age  sleep  peacefully 
in  the  gleaming  night,  clinging  to  one  another ; 
how  they  are  awakened  by  rosy  dawn  and  refresh 
themselves  in  a  crystal  brook  ;  how,  beneath  a 
noonday  sun,  they  play  and  dance  and  shout  for 
joy,  pluck  blossoms  and  fruits,  and  sit  before 
dainty  dishes.  It  is  a  profusion  of  magnificently 
modelled  nude  women  who  are  all  very  red  of 
skin  ;  a  laughing  exuberance  of  life  such  as  an  old- 
time  worshipper  of  the  obscene  god  of  fruitfulness 
might  have  dreamt  of  amidst  the  reek  of  sacrifice.  It 
is  also  a  funnily  cannibalistic  debauch  of  delicious 
children's  flesh  and  blooming,  well -nourished  bodies. 
In  other  pictures  Frederic  has  occasionally  tortured 
us  by  quite  as  perfectly  painted,  but,  on  account  of 
their  inexorable  truth,  fearfully  painful  representations 
of  radiant  nudities  torn  by  thorns,  and  whole  heaps  of 
children's  corpses.  Here,  however,  he  is  all  joy  and 
peace,  and  his  picture  is  a  delight  to  the  eye. 

241  Q 


On  Art  and  Artists 

In  another  of  Frederic's  triptychs,  "  The  Ages 
of  the  Workman,"  we  can  measure  the  whole 
emptiness  of  such  concepts  as  "  Realism "  and 
"  Idealism."  Compare  Frederic  with  the  Bastien 
Lepage  of  the  Luxembourg.  Bastien  Lepage  passes 
for  the  most  perfect  didactic  type  of  realistic  paint- 
ing. His  brutalised,  ape-like,  feeble-minded,  staring 
Reaper  is  supposed  to  be  genuine,  unrouged  nature. 
Possibly  the  painter  has,  on  some  occasion,  seen 
a  disgusting  idiot  of  this  sort.  I  do  not  know,  but 
I  will  believe  it,  for  I  should  like  to  assume  that  he 
had  not  discovered  in  his  own  imagination  so  per- 
versely distorted  an  image  of  the  human  form.  But 
as  such  repulsively  bestial  young  women  are,  in 
any  case,  rare  exceptions  among  the  white  races, 
Bastien  Lepage  has  unmistakably  taken  the  trouble 
to  choose  out  of  thousands  the  most  hideous  model 
he  could  hunt  up,  out  of  a  base,  corrupt  delight  in 
ugliness,  with  the  malicious  intention  of  defaming 
nature.  Frederic  tells  a  story  in  his  triptych,  "  The 
Ages  of  the  Workman."  Who  can  deny  that  he, 
too,  has  held  with  absolute  accuracy  to  reality? 
On  the  right,  early  childhood :  workmen's  wives, 
young  and  fair  mothers  are  suckling  their  babies, 
sweet,  fat  little  creatures  with  firm  little  limbs  and 
skins  like  rose  leaves ;  little  maidens,  who  can 
hardly  stand  on  their  feet,  take  in  tow  and  act  the 
mother  to  still  smaller  brothers  and  sisters ;  old 
grandmothers,  who  can  no  longer  take  part  in  the 
labours  of  the  household,  keep  an  eye  on  the  children 

242 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

crawling  and  swarming  about.    In  the  middle,  youth  : 
neglected  yet  happy  scapegraces  are  playing  cards 
in  the  street,  sitting  or  squatting  on  the  curb-stone  ; 
undisciplined  lads  are  venturing  the  experiment  of 
their  first  cigarette ;   grown-up  youths  go  out  with 
young  girls  of  their  class  on  their  arm  ;   what  they 
whisper   in   the   ears   of  their   blushing   sweethearts 
would  scarcely  delight  severe  guardians  of  morals  ; 
but,  at  that  period  of  life,  in  that  human  environment, 
their  feelings  are  so  natural  and  healthy  that,  in  spite 
of  all  crabbed  affectation,  they  are  felt  to  be  pleasant 
and   touching.     Finally,   on   the    left,   men   in   their 
prime   are   at   work :    they   are   erecting   toilsomely, 
with  heavy  pieces,  a  scaffold,  and  a  little  youngster 
looks  at  them ;   what  he  has  before  his  eyes  is  his 
own  future  lot,  but  in  his  careless,  boyish  curiosity 
he  notices  only  the  amusing  side  of  the  growth  of 
a  skilful   and   intricate   work  of  man,  not  the   hard 
seriousness    of   the    ill-paid,   dangerous,   and   severe 
exertion.     Thus   the   life   of    the    poor    artisan    lies 
exposed   to   our   gaze.      Frederic   does   not   conceal 
from  us  either  its  hardships  or  the  scantiness  of  its 
material  condition.      He   shows   us  how  poorly  the 
people  are  clad,  how  ugly  their  streets  and  houses 
are,  how  narrow  is  the  circle  that  includes  their  petty 
joys  and  sorrows,  and  how  serious,  now  and  then,  is 
their  pastime.    But  he  makes  us  see  also  the  sunshine 
resting   golden   over   their  years   of   childhood  and 
youth,  and   feel   the   satisfactions   with   which   their 
families  also  animate  and  delight  their  monotonous 

243 


On  Art  and  Artists 

existence.  He  brings  these  poor,  humble  people 
humanly  near  us,  and  gives  us  a  great  lesson  in 
brotherhood.  Every  feature  in  his  picture  is  true ; 
but  from  this  truth  a  noble  and  consoling  thought 
proceeds,  revealing  to  us  its  full  extent  of  beauty 
and  moral  motives.  Frederic  is  a  Realist  quite  as 
much  as  Bastien  Lepage,  so  far  as  he  deals  with 
the  painfully  exact  reproduction  of  sights  he  has 
actually  observed.  But  in  Fr&d Eric's  presentment  the 
commonplace  appears  ennobled,  and  that  a  super- 
ficial aestheticism  dubs  Idealism.  The  fact  of  the 
matter  is  that  the  words  Realism  and  Idealism 
mean  simply  nothing.  There  is  no  art,  there  is  no 
artistic  tendency,  which  could  be  so  designated. 
There  are  only  artists'  temperaments,  which  are 
themselves  bilious,  and,  for  that  reason,  dwell 
with  malicious  joy  on  the  unpleasant  sides  of  reality, 
and  others  which  delight  in  all  that  is  bright,  and 
have  a  presentiment  of  a  deeper  redeeming  meaning 
even  behind  the  unpleasing  external.  The  Realism 
of  a  Bastien  Lepage  is  calumny ;  that  of  a  Frederic, 
a  speech  for  the  defence. 

JEAN  PAUL  LAURENS  has  reached  all  the  heights 
of  artistic  success.  He  is  a  professor,  an  Academician, 
and  he  receives  the  most  honourable  commissions 
from  the  State  and  great  cities.  He  has  been 
graciously  permitted  to  satisfy  his  ambition  as  a 
monumental  painter  with  enormous  wall-  and  ceiling- 
paintings,  like  those  of  the  Capitol  of  Toulouse. 

244 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

He  was  often  more  happy,  often  less  happy,  always 
powerful,  always  pathetic,  now  and  then,  I  will 
admit,  declamatory.  But  he  has  also  once  forsaken 
his  visions  of  history  and  turned  a  glance  at  the 
present ;  and  what  he  saw  there,  he  fixed  in  a  great 
painting  which  he  calls  "  Mining  Folk,"  which  stands 
above  all  his  far-famed  frescoes. 

It  is  evening.  Between  a  high,  steep  -  sloping 
heap  of  coal  and  slack  and  a  low  line  of  distant 
hills  closing  the  horizon,  a  big  town  is  painted  in  a 
wide  trough  of  country.  Over  the  crowded  roofs  of 
this  town  numerous  chimneys  rise  up.  No  church 
towers  or  palace  gables,  only  chimneys  which  belch 
aggressively,  one  might  say,  white  vapour  or  dense 
black  smoke  in  the  face  of  the  twilight  sky.  From 
the  middle  distance  a  procession  of  weary,  toil-worn 
men,  whose  legs  drag  and  heads  hang  down,  is 
moving  forward  along  a  causeway.  From  the  depths 
on  both  sides  of  the  causeway  ascend  clouds  of 
sulphurous  yellow  and  blue  smoke. 

Any  one  engrossed  in  the  details  may  see  how 
the  workmen  wandering  homewards  are  clad  in  the 
garb  of  the  modern  proletariat,  and  how  a  manu- 
facturing town  of  the  present  day  with  typical 
factory  buildings  lies  stretched  before  us.  But  the 
first  rapid,  comprehensive  glance  conveys  quite  a 
different  impression.  The  town  looks  like  a  Sodom 
and  Gomorrha  in  rebellion  against  God,  and  is  on 
the  point  of  being  chastised  by  fire  from  heaven. 
The  procession  of  men  appears  to  be  a  band  of  the 

245 


On  Art  and  Artists 

damned  which  a  hidden,  mysterious  abyss  of  hell, 
behind  the  bend  in  the  road,  has  vomited.  Near 
the  causeway,  uncanny  depths  seem  to  yawn,  from 
which  tongues  of  hell  -  flames  leap  up.  It  is  a 
prophet's  vision,  and  the  atmosphere  of  a  saga.  You 
fancy  you  have  an  illustration  of  the  Inferno  before 
you,  but  also  a  note  from  the  formula  according  to 
which  the  painters  and  sculptors  of  the  Middle  Ages 
were  wont  to  depict  the  Last  Judgment. 

And  the  most  remarkable  thing  is  that  this  epic 
extension  and  enhancement  of  so  banal  an  incident 
as  the  exodus  of  a  shift  of  pitmen  knocking  off  their 
work  is  by  no  means  intended.  The  painter  nowhere 
consciously  works  with  a  view  to  melodrama.  He 
keeps,  in  all  details,  strictly  to  facts.  It  is  only  his 
perception  that  has  made  a  canto  of  Dante  out  of  a 
true  copy  of  an  everyday  incident.  At  the  sight  of 
the  flaming  forges,  smoking  chimneys,  and  exhausted 
slaves  working  for  hire,  there  came  to  him  an  inkling 
of  the  mighty  forces  of  nature  and  society  which  are 
at  work  in  the  man-  and  horse-powers  of  a  modern 
wholesale  business,  which  fixed  the  choice  and 
arrangement  of  elements  in  his  picture,  imprinted 
on  it  the  demoniac  feature,  and  rendered  it  a  profound 
symbol  of  the  history  of  a  part  of  humanity. 

JEF  LEEMPOELS  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
of  contemporary  Flemings  in  whom  the  exquisite 
artistic  qualities  of  their  mediaeval  forefathers  and 
masters  live  again.  Leempoels  has  the  sturdy, 

246 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

homely  truthfulness  of  these  ancestors,  their  profound 
feeling,  and  speculative  mind,  which  easily  goes  astray 
into  the  fantastic.  He  has  their  masterly  draughts- 
manship, and  he  only  lacks  their  delight  in  colour 
and  their  gift  of  free,  clear  composition  to  rise  entirely 
to  their  greatness. 

He  does  not  rely  on  his  capability  or  right  to 
distinguish  between  the  essential  and  the  non- 
essential.  He  does  not  dominate  his  subject  with 
sovereignly  subjective  perception,  but  makes  himself 
the  humble  slave  of  the  phenomena  and  all  their  most 
capricious  and  lowest  details.  He  does  not  span  the 
world  with  the  eye  of  a  creative  artist,  but  glances 
at  it  as  though  he  were  a  photographic  apparatus 
for  taking  authentic  negatives.  To  this  intellectual 
dependence  is  joined  an  insufficient  development 
of  the  sense  of  what  is  picturesque.  Leempoels 
is  dry  in  his  accuracy  and  sober  in  his  colouring. 
He  does  not  seem  to  think  it  is  his  vocation  to 
harmonise  tones  and  to  please  the  eye  by  a  well- 
arranged  palette.  And  in  spite  of  all  this  I  can 
never  forget  his  chief  pictures.  He  revealed  his 
nature  in  naive  little  features.  For  instance,  on  the 
wall  of  the  room  where  the  father  and  mother,  old 
and  worn  out  by  life,  are  sitting  together,  hang  faded 
photographs  representing  them,  as  a  young  married 
couple,  in  a  strikingly  comic  dress  according  to  the 
latest  fashion  of  five-and-twenty  years  ago,  yet  young 
and  full  of  joyous  hope.  This  discreet  contrast,  which 
must  be  sought  for  to  be  noticed,  contains  the  whole 

247 


On  Art  and  Artists 

melancholy  poetry  of  their  life  from  blooming  youth 
to  withered  age.  And  the  pictures  of  his  sisters. 
The  good  girls  are  not  particularly  favoured  by 
nature ;  they  are  true  daughters  of  the  homely 
Flemish  race,  in  whom  beauty  is  rare.  When 
Leempoels  painted  them,  there  was  a  struggle  in 
him  between  the  conscientiousness  of  a  sworn  witness 
to  reality  and  brotherly  love ;  but  the  former  gained 
the  victory,  and  the  latter  was  allowed  to  reveal  itself 
only  in  the  delicate,  almost  caressing,  perfection  of 
their  hands,  necks,  hair,  and  clothes. 

His  picture  "  Friendship  " — an  old  and  somewhat 
younger  man  are  sitting  boldly  before  us,  hand  in 
hand,  with  their  honest,  ugly  faces  turned  full  towards 
us.  They  are  figures  from  the  people,  the  one 
wearing  a  green,  the  other  a  dark  red  knitted 
waistcoat.  They  are  evidently  neither  rich  nor 
educated,  and  no  particularly  developed  intellectual 
life  speaks  from  their  clear,  reposeful  eyes,  or  their 
heavy,  vulgar  features.  And  yet  they  are  noble 
creatures.  It  is  their  feeling  which  ennobles  them. 
Only  lofty  souls  are  capable  of  such  loyalty  and 
attachment  as  these  two  workmen,  who  so  affection- 
ately clasp  each  other's  hands  and  lean  shoulder  to 
shoulder — let  come  what  come  may  ! — and  he  who 
comprehends  character  without  declamation  says  to 
himself  involuntarily  before  this  picture :  "  It  is  well 
for  him  who  in  his  path  through  life  meets  with 
such  friendship."  Here  Leempoels  has  performed 
the  highest  mission  of  the  artist — he  has  recognised 

248 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

and  indicated  convincingly  what  is  grand  and 
beautiful  in  the  insignificant  and  commonplace. 
That  is  healthy  idealism,  for  which  it  is  my  pride 
to  fight — a  consoling  and  uplifting  moral  purport 
in  an  exact  and  true  form. 

I  am  less  agreed  in  respect  of  another  picture. 
Leempoels  calls  it  "  Fate  and  Humanity,"  and  in 
this  he  has  gone  beyond  his  natural  vocal  register. 
From  the  lower  rim  of  the  picture  there  grows  a 
marvellous  flora  of  hands  stretched  forth  on  high, 
either  folded  in  supplication  or  clenched  in  threaten- 
ing fists,  embracing  many  symbols  of  faith  of 
various  kinds,  such  as  crosses,  communion  chalices, 
fetishes  and  offerings ;  over  them  appears,  in  violet 
light  and  filling  two-thirds  of  the  picture,  a  huge, 
bearded  face  that,  indifferent  and  unmoved,  gazes 
forward  without  noticing  the  hands  of  supplication 
and  blasphemy  raised  towards  it.  It  is  plain 
enough  what  Leempoels  wants  to  express;  but  it  is 
not  apparent  what  the  effect  will  be  of  this  violet 
face  as  inexorable  destiny.  Its  feeble,  vacant  gaze 
and  stiff  nimbus  infuse  no  particular  horror,  and 
nothing  else  which  might  be  imposing  is  discernible 
in  it.  On  the  other  hand,  Leempoels  imparts  to 
the  hands  the  full  measure  of  his  amazing  capacity. 
These  hundreds  of  hands,  which  are  painted  with 
a  patience  that  is  almost  painful,  have  all  their 
individual  physiognomy.  They  are  all  individual 
hands  of  men  and  women,  young  and  old,  industrious 
and  idle,  Caucasian,  Nubian,  and  Indian.  The  hands 

249 


On  Art  and  Artists 

of  all  races,  callings,  ages  and  temperaments  are 
so  perfect  in  their  characterisation  that  error  is 
impossible.  If  among  the  hands  were  to  be  found 
those  of  a  friend,  I  should  certainly  recognise  them 
at  the  first  glance.  As  a  study  of  human  hands, 
the  piece  is  a  museum-picture  which  has  not  its  peer 
in  all  the  collections  with  which  I  am  acquainted. 
As  a  work  of  art  it  saddens  through  want  of  taste. 
Leempoels  would  sin  against  himself  if  he  strayed 
into  unlimited  symbolism.  His  talent  points  him 
in  the  direction  of  the  clearly  circumscribed.  He 
need  not  trouble  himself  about  being  implicated 
with  Philistinism  through  his  devotion  to  actuality. 
His  sincerity  of  feeling,  too,  in  the  treatment  of 
Philistine  subjects,  will  always  raise  him  above 
Philistinism. 

HENRI  MARTIN  has  always  aimed  at  lofty  ends, 
but  the  paths  he  has  followed  to  gain  them  were 
crooked  and  wrong.  He  was,  when  he  began,  and 
still  is,  in  moments  of  relapse,  a  dabbing  stumper, 
i.e.,  he  laid  on  a  thick  dab  of  colour  the  size 
of  a  hazel-nut  and  extended  it  somewhat.  With 
this  method,  his  famous  "Vibrations"  was,  indeed, 
successful,  especially  at  a  certain  distance  ;  but  he 
broke  up  all  form,  and  this  allowed  him  to  draw 
quite  superficially.  If  any  one  reproached  him  with 
not  rendering  a  single  outline  with  exactness  and 
certainty,  he  could  use  the  excuse :  "  One  cannot  at 
the  same  time  flood  a  picture  with  flickering  light 

250 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

and  model  precisely."  Stumping  was  with  Martin  as 
with  his  imitators  the  cloak  to  cover  up  artistically 
dishonest  forms.  His  idealism — the  main  feature  in 
his  physiognomy  as  an  artist — was  revealed,  in  his 
first  period  chiefly,  by  his  feeble  figures  being 
dressed  in  the  garb  peculiar  to  no  time  or  country, 
the  garb  in  which  the  Primitives  were  wont  to  make 
their  angels  appear,  and  by  their  moving  in  an 
artificial  stage,  which  one  can  call  neither  earth, 
nor  air,  nor  heaven ;  for,  as  a  rule,  it  was  painted 
a  single  iridescent,  mixed  colour,  mostly  a  sort  of 
pale  lilac,  into  which  some  darker,  smooth  tree  trunks, 
placed  regularly  like  a  lattice,  were  introduced. 

Typical  of  his  first  period  are  his  symbolical 
pictures  "  Towards  the  Abyss,"  and  "  Every  One 
has  his  own  Chimaera."  We  are  almost  ashamed 
to  linger  over  describing  this  confused  rubbish. 

"  Towards  the  Abyss." — A  hussy  unclad  after  the 
fashion  in  vogue  at  a  Paris  artists'  pot-house — her 
cunning  nudity  is  emphasised  by  ball-shoes,  long 
black  gloves,  and  by  a  black  veil,  thrown  back  at 
the  right  place,  but  transparent  throughout  —  is 
hurrying  down  the  gentle  slope  of  a  hill.  Bats' 
wings  wide  outspread  sprout  from  her  shoulders. 
A  crowd  of  people,  in  which  men  and  women  of 
all  ages  and  ranks  are  mixed  up,  rush  after  her 
with  the  attitudes  and  gestures  of  epidemic  madness. 
Some  run,  others  drag  themselves  along  on  their 
knees,  others,  again,  on  all  fours,  after  her,  and  scuffle 
for  flowers  which  she  strews  in  her  wake.  Every 

251 


On  Art  and  Artists 

meaning  can  be  imported  into  this  picture,  but 
nothing  can  be  gleaned  from  it,  or,  at  most,  that 
the  frenzied  attitudes  of  the  slaves  and  victims 
of  this  creature,  wallowing  in  the  dust,  kissing  and 
licking  the  hussy's  footsteps,  betray  an  unconscious 
masochistic  trait  in  Henri  Martin's  soul. 

"  Every  One  has  his  own  Chimaera "  is  even  more 
futile  than  this  perverse  illustration  of  the  pious 
admonition :  "  Keep  from  sin,  for  the  lust  of  the 
flesh  leads  to  destruction."  A  number  of  daubed, 
shadowy  figures  crawl  painfully  along  in  a  clay- 
coloured  mass  ;  each  is  bent  under  a  burden  which 
represents  in  bodily  form  his  ruling  passion.  Thus 
the  sensualist  carries  a  naked  strumpet ;  the  miser 
a  sack  full  of  gold  ;  the  ambitious  man  laurels  and 
the  spoils  of  war,  etc. — a  lamentable  attempt  to 
represent  a  literary  commonplace  in  an  artist's 
vision,  in  a  living  and  concrete  form. 

Luckily,  Henri  Martin  showed  development.  After 
his  first  period  of  crudely  affected  stippling  and 
streaking,  of  bold  neglect  of  drawing,  amidst  the 
shapeless  daubing  of  coloured  confetti,  serpentines, 
and  pomposities,  with  a  would-be  profound  yet 
absolutely  vacant  symbolism,  he  returned  to  nature 
and  life,  treated  warmly  human  subjects  from  an 
ideal  standpoint,  and  toned  down  the  crudeness 
of  his  execution  without,  I  admit,  giving  it  up 
altogether. 

Commissioned  by  a  rich  banker,  he  painted  for  the 
Marseilles  Savings  Bank  a  monumental  triptych 

252 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

which  he  called  "  Labour."  He  assigns  views  of 
Marseilles — certainly  treated  with  great  freedom — 
to  the  three  backgrounds.  The  manifest  meaning 
of  the  three  panels  is  morning,  noon,  and  evening. 
In  the  first  panel,  the  children  are  on  their  way 
to  school,  reading  their  books  ;  the  women  are  going 
to  market,  the  labourers  to  their  place  of  work.  In 
the  second,  dockers,  under  the  glowing  sun  of 
Provence,  are  unloading  a  ship's  cargo,  which  con- 
sists of  baskets  full  of  golden  oranges.  In  the  third, 
the  waterside  is  almost  deserted  ;  an  old  couple,  with 
a  child  carrying  a  doll  in  its  arm  walking  in  front  of 
them,  stroll  in  the  cool  of  the  day ;  some  artisan 
families  are  also  enjoying  some  fresh  air  after  leaving 
off  work,  and 

Jam  majores  cadunt  altis  a  montibus  umbrae. 

But  the  times  of  day  are,  as  I  have  said,  only  the 
plain  meaning  of  the  picture.  Beside  or  behind  it, 
it  has  also  a  deeper,  veiled  meaning.  It  would 
illustrate  also  an  actual  state  of  things  in  the  future. 
Valiantly  take  full  advantage  of  school  in  the 
morning  of  life,  learn  and  prepare  yourself  by  that 
means  for  working  and  daring  later  on.  Labour 
in  your  prime  until  your  ribs  crack :  you  can  do 
so,  and  it  is  lucrative.  In  return,  in  the  evening  of 
life  you  will  be  at  ease,  and,  as  a  comfortable  man 
of  means,  enjoy  refreshing  leisure. 

We  must  be  allowed  to  laugh  at  this  optimistic 
aspect  of  industrial  life.  If  Henri  Martin  has  known 

253 


On  Art  and  Artists 

a  docker — of  Marseilles  or  any  other  place — who 
was  able  to  end  his  life  as  a  man  of  independent 
means,  I  should  like  to  ask  him  for  that  man's 
photograph.  Nevertheless,  a  painter  need  not  be  a 
political  economist,  and  the  picture  is,  you  know, 
intended  for  a  Savings  Bank,  and  the  people  who 
will  see  it  there  may  actually  find  themselves  on  the 
way  to  the  independency  that  makes  blessed,  though 
hardly  after  noonday  unloading  of  orange  boats. 
We  might  be  able  to  pass  lightly  over  the  poverty 
of  thought  in  the  work,  if  its  artistic  qualities  were 
satisfactory.  But  there's  the  rub.  It  was  indeed  a 
questionable  thought  to  put  in  juxtaposition  three 
pictures  separated  only  by  slender  pillars,  which  had 
to  exhibit  three  absolutely  different  lights ;  for  either 
the  lights  of  morning,  noon,  and  evening  were  properly 
kept  apart,  and  we  had  a  discord  in  three  notes,  or 
the  tones  were  pitched  in  one  key  in  order  not  to 
shriek  at  each  other,  in  which  case  they  were  untrue. 
Such  is  indeed  the  case.  There  is  a  somewhat  more 
silvery  breath  about  "  Morning,"  a  somewhat  redder 
one  about  "  Noon,"  a  paler  violet  about  "  Evening  "  ; 
but  the  lights  and  shadows  are  about  equally  powerful, 
whatever  be  the  position  of  the  sun.  The  forest  of 
masts  in  the  middle  panel  is  of  such  exaggerated 
density  that  the  eye  is  confused  in  the  maze  of 
shrouds  and  yards.  And  the  entire  picture  is 
executed  in  the  crudest  stippling,  with  dabs  of  colour 
thickly  plastered  on,  so  that  it  looks  almost  scaly. 
If  Henri  Martin  could  give  up  his  vagaries  and  lack 

254 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

of  good  taste,  he  would  be  a  monumental  artist  of 
lofty  vocation  ;  for,  though  the  fairies  have  refused 
him  sundry  things,  they  have  given  him  one  precious 
gift  when  he  was  in  his  cradle,  viz.,  that  of  light. 
There  is  sun  in  his  pictures,  and  they  brighten  up 
the  space  they  occupy. 

His  best  work  up  to  now  is  a  huge  wall-painting 
for  the  Capitol  of  Toulouse. 

A  landscape  of  big,  restful  lines  with  a  background 
of  dark-shadowed  mountain  forests,  against  which 
all  I  have  to  object  is  that  they  wall  in  the  whole 
horizon.  From  this  range  of  darkening  blue  heights 
the  country  sinks  in  undulating  tiers  of  hills  to  the 
plain  of  the  foreground.  Here  the  idyll  of  the  seasons 
and  men's  lives  is  developed  in  three  pictures.  First, 
amidst  the  laughing  spring,  a  strapping  maiden, 
intoxicated  with  love,  on  the  breast  of  the  young  lad 
who  is  embracing  her.  Next,  a  number  of  stalwart 
country  folk  in  the  summer  work  of  haymaking, 
on  whom,  beyond  the  cut  grass,  their  wives  and 
children  at  play  are  gazing.  Lastly,  under  melancholy 
autumn  trees,  a  lonely  old  woman  preoccupied  with 
recollections.  The  people  are  homely,  of  course, 
without  crude  realism,  poetic  without  the  shepherd- 
insipidity  of  Gessner.  The  parallelism  between  the 
aging  of  the  men  and  women  and  the  progress  of 
the  year  is  unforced ;  the  symbolism  clear  and 
free  from  morbid,  perverse  mysticism.  Turf,  trees, 
and  bushes  are  decorative  in  form,  delicate,  and  at 
the  same  time  sufficient  in  colour,  and  the  whole 

255 


On  Art  and  Artists 

is  flooded  by  a  wonderfully  joyous  sunshine,  which 
is  more  reminiscent  of  the  glories  of  May  in 
Provence  than  even  Montenard's  symphonies  of 
light.  Henri  Martin  has,  I  admit,  here,  too,  indulged 
in  stippling,  but  he  has  given  his  people  and  trees 
strong,  free  outlines,  and  scarred  only  the  outer  skin 
very  lightly  with  pock-marks.  He  has  not  abandoned 
that  ill  habit,  but  he  seems  to  practise  it  with  remorse. 
Perhaps  he  thinks  gradual  transition  is  due  to  his 
conversion  to  better  insight.  In  any  case,  this  picture 
was  conceived  and  executed  in  a  happy  moment. 

Henri  Martin's  career  teaches  a  moral.  Let  him 
who  would  honour  an  artist  continually  bear  in 
mind  an  appropriately  modified  reading  of  Solon's 
warning  to  Crcesus :  "  Do  not  pronounce  on  any 
artist  before  his  death." 

JEAN  RAFFAELLI.  —  Like  Henri  Martin,  Sisley, 
and  the  other  stipplers  who  painted  with  little 
dots,  Jean  Francois  Raffaelli  at  first  painted  with 
thin,  slightly  serpentine  strokes.  And  we  have  had 
to  get  accustomed  to  this  manner.  Raffaelli  has 
been  able  to  succeed,  because  he  long  favoured 
subjects  for  which  his  ripple  lines  were  the  suitable 
style.  He  painted  poor  people  in  poor  land- 
scapes, emaciated  bodies  in  slatternly  clothes  under 
trees  as  dry  as  brooms.  Like  a  raindrop  on  a 
window  -  pane,  and  like  a  tear  on  a  furrowed 
cheek,  the  slender  traces  of  colour  flowed  down 
these  pitiable  figures,  arousing  twilight  imaginations 

256 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

of  weeping,  plaintive  trickling,  and  dissolving. 
Later  on  he  caught  cheerful,  coloured  views  of 
Paris  streets  —  The  Invalides,  Notre  Dame,  and 
the  Place  St  Michel.  In  these  his  streaky  way  of 
painting  was  somewhat  inadequate  ;  but  his  amazing 
feeling  for  a  crowd  in  the  hurried,  nervous  move- 
ment which  is  peculiar  to  the  Parisian  lower  orders, 
saved  him.  I  know  no  painter  who  feels  as  Raffaelli 
the  bustle  of  the  world's  metropolis.  I  think  that 
any  one  who  suffers  from  dread  of  the  market-place, 
must  get  a  feeling  of  fear  at  seeing  his  pictures. 

In  a  third  period  of  his  production,  Raffaelli 
gave  a  rare  example  of  complete  change  in  his 
maturity.  He  who  had  grown  famous  as  a  painter 
of  the  poor  and  miserable,  of  vices  and  sicknesses, 
turned,  at  the  zenith  of  his  success,  from  the 
aspects  that  he  had  hitherto  cherished,  and  opened 
his  heart  to  the  joys  of  existence.  In  his  mind 
a  process  occurred,  such  as  the  ninth  symphony 
describes  in  eternal  strains.  In  his  despair  a 
voice  suddenly  cries  out :  "  Brothers,  let  us  sing 
other  strains,"  and  roars  out  exultingly :  "  Joy,  fair 
brightness  of  the  gods."  Formerly,  he  knew  only 
abandoned  tramps,  tattered  beggars  and  thieves, 
broken-down  hospital  brothers.  His  plant-world 
consisted  of  the  leprous  turf  in  front  of  the  Paris 
forts,  decayed  flowers,  the  half-withered,  suburban 
street  trees,  broomlike  and  leafless  as  in  autumn. 
And  he  painted  this  misery  in  miserable  colours 
and  in  his  own  peculiar,  streaky  manner,  especially 

257  R 


On  Art  and  Artists 

appropriate  to  the  subject.  Now  he  caresses  with 
a  broad,  full  brush  bloomingly  beautiful  maidens 
in  white  raiment,  sunny,  ornamental  gardens  with 
rich  parterres,  fresh  nosegays  or  living  flowers.  He 
has  also  changed  his  style  with  his  subject.  It  is 
all  renovated — palette,  execution,  and  story.  I  have 
a  feeling  of  a  secret  happiness  having  blossomed  in 
this  artist's  soul,  and  I  rejoice  in  the  cheerful  uncon- 
cern with  which,  by  his  altered  work,  he  makes  all 
men  privy  to  his  Vita  Nuova. 

ODILON  REDON  is  a  completed  artist.  His 
development  is  ended.  It  came  from  Gustave 
Moreau,  and  it  never  deviated  from  him.  He  is  a 
delightful  harmonist  of  colours,  who  handles  the 
sharp  and  flat  notes  with  equal  mastery,  and  if  he 
condescends  to  paint  flowers,  fruits,  unpretentious 
still  life,  and  landscapes  every  one  can  understand, 
he  displays  naturalness,  taste,  and  winning  homeli- 
ness. But  when  he  strives  for  higher  expression 
he  gets  beyond  his  master's  range  of  vision,  and 
becomes  purely  hallucinatory.  Fabulous  creatures, 
at  once  Pegasus  and  Centaur,  stagger  about  amongst 
rare  flowers,  which  gape  like  bleeding  wounds  or 
grin  like  vampires'  mouths.  Monsters  without 
.recognisable  organic  shape,  bastard  combinations 
of  parts  of  dragons,  beetles,  birds  and  fishes  hover 
or  swim  in  an  uncertain  medium,  which  may  be 
water,  air,  or  ether.  Dreadful  human  heads,  bound 
in  clusters,  grow  bushlike  out  of  the  ground.  All 
this  is  in  colour  pleasing ;  in  form,  enigmatical. 

258 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

Gustave  Moreau  is  always  intelligible ;  we  know 
the  myths  he  clothes  in  forms  of  extrahuman  and 
superhuman  splendour.  No  one  can  make  head 
or  tail  of  Odilon  Redon.  He  himself  does  not 
think  at  all  in  his  unearthly  representations,  and 
they  awaken  no  definite  thoughts  either,  but  affect 
us  like  wild  faces  in  a  fever. 

PIERRE  AUGUSTE  RENOIR  is  also  counted  among 
the  Impressionists  and  Naturalists.  When  we  see 
that  the  same  designation  is  applied  to  him  as,  for 
example,  to  Cezanne,  we  can,  as  it  were,  clutch 
with  our  hand  the  misuse  of  the  words,  and  con- 
vince ourselves  how  senseless  classification  in  art 
is.  Renoir  is  certainly  no  painter  of  prettiness. 
He  does  not  paint  nature  white  and  rosy,  or  stick 
beauty-patches  on  her  face.  He  does  not  go  out 
of  his  way  even  for  pronounced  ugliness.  You  have 
only  to  look  at  his  two  Megaeras  on  the  garden 
bench  to  be  convinced  of  this ;  but  beside  these 
witches  he  has  so  much  refreshing,  individualised 
beauty,  that  one  fails  to  understand  how  he  could 
have  been  classed  with  Cezanne  and,  what  is  more, 
the  routine  Naturalists.  His  naked  young  woman 
with  the  mother-of-pearl  flesh  ;  his  lady  in  a  cashmere 
dressing-gown  on  the  tapestry  sofa  ;  his  girl  in  blue 
with  the  red  cap,  and  the  little  sister  in  white ;  his 
two  ladies  with  the  roses,  are  simply  charming. 
And  love  speaks  no  less  from  his  chrysanthemums 
and  his  sunny  meadows  than  from  his  men  and 

259 


On  Art  and  Artists 

women.  He  who  has  the  same  feeling  as  Renoir 
for  roses  and  children,  is  not  only  a  great  painter, 
but  also  a  good  and  noble  man. 

ALFRED  ROLL  is  one  of  the  most  amiable  figures 
in  the  art  world  of  to-day.  No  one  has  such  feel- 
ing as  he  for  the  exquisitely  delicate  silvery  vapour 
of  a  May  morning  atmosphere,  quivering  with  sun- 
light and  saturated  with  dew.  No  one  knows  how 
to  model  out  with  such  creative  genius  as  he  a 
human  body  from  the  daylight  that  flows  around 
it  in  gushing  torrents.  In  his  free-light  painting 
one  breathes  free  from  all  oppression.  Besides 
qualities  which,  in  all  ages,  make  a  great  artist, 
he  has  the  little  trace  of  corruption  which  makes 
him  a  legitimate  son  of  our  age.  One  of  his 
masterpieces — the  naked  young  woman  who  clings 
caressingly  to  the  bull — awakes  Pasiphaistic  ideas 
of  old  classic  aberration.  To  procure  pardon  for 
this  picture,  he  had  to  do  no  less  than  paint  the 
splendidly  healthy  peasant  girl  with  the  brimming 
milk-pail  and  the  cow — certainly  a  worthy  penance. 

Roll  is,  to  be  sure,  not  always  the  charming, 
luminous  painter  of  the  milk-maid  and  the  girl  with 
the  bull.  He  very  often  strikes  other  notes.  Thus, 
for  instance,  in  his  picture  inspired  by  socialism, 
which  he  calls  "The  Martyr's  Road,"  he  shows  an 
old  tramp  who,  with  his  back  leaning  against  a  tree, 
has  collapsed  by  the  wayside,  has  let  his  wallet  fall 
beside  him,  and  appears  to  be  about  to  give  up  the 
ghost.  The  misery  of  his  worn  countenance  already 

260 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

overshadowed  by  death,  of  his  emaciated  figure  and 
tattered  clothes  are  convincing.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  open  to  question  whether  it  was  good  taste  to 
paint  the  dying  man  in  front  view,  with  bold  fore- 
shortening of  the  outstretched  legs,  and  with  boot- 
soles  of  a  terrific  size,  that  rear  up  before  us,  in  the 
extreme  foreground,  like  two  prae-historic  menhirs. 
Roll  intended  to  pay  his  homage  to  Maxim  Gorki 
also.  Was  it  from  sincere  feeling,  or  to  show  that 
he  is  dans  le  mouvement,  and  is  keeping  step  with 
the  most  advanced  of  his  time? 

He  has  insisted  on  trying  his  hand  at  monu- 
mental decoration  also.  The  fruit  of  his  effort  is 
a  gigantic  picture  which  he  entitles  "  Life's  Joys." 
He  has  evidently  thought  of  Watteau,  probably  of 
the  latter's  "  Embarcation  to  Cythera."  It  is  the 
same  blissful  landscape  with  roses,  trees,  and  water 
that  seems,  in  the  haze  of  the  distance,  to  continue 
interminably  until  it  reaches  Paradise.  It  is  the 
same  air  which  the  rain  of  blossom  renders 
coloured  and  almost  opaque.  It  is  the  same 
spring  sky  which  we  might  hail  with  shouts  of  joy. 
The  men  and  women,  however,  who  give  life  to 
this  Eden,  are  different  to  Watteau's.  In  Roll, 
everything  is  marvellously  austere  and  hard.  His 
women  in  the  foreground  are  naked,  and  partly 
lie  in  Michael  Angelesque  attitudes  on  the  grass, 
partly  sit  there  overpoweringly  monumental.  Loving 
couples,  walking  and  dancing,  behave  as  if  they 
were  possessed  by  wild,  brutal  lust.  Something  like 

261 


On  Art  and  Artists 

a  tragic  current  is  traceable  amidst  this  idyll.  We 
exclaim  in  alarm  :  "  Here,  this  very  day,  there  will  yet 
be  murder  or  manslaughter."  And  with  the  object 
of  destroying  still  more  the  ideal  note  of  May, 
Roll  puts,  in  the  midst  of  this  fairy-tale  splendour, 
three  realistic  musicians,  whose  clothes  were  bought 
at  la  Belle  Jardiniere,  who  will  certainly,  after  every 
dance,  go  round  with  a  plate  and  collect  from  their 
audience.  Where  will  the  nude  ladies  take  money 
from  to  throw  to  them?  How  much. more  charm- 
ingly and  wittily  does  Watteau  begin  his  theme ! 
Only  a  marble  statue  of  a  woman  renounces  the 
advantages  of  elegant  toilettes.  Winged  Cupids 
flit  about  the  young  couples,  and  translate,  as  it 
were,  into  lyrical,  rhymed  verses  the  naturalistic 
prose  of  the  gallantry  exhibited.  The  men  do 
not  rage  in  brutal  eagerness,  but  pay  delicate  and 
discreet  court  to  their  ladies.  And  above  all  things, 
Watteau's  infallible  taste  warns  him  against  telling 
his  stories  at  excessive  length.  As  brevity  is  the 
soul  of  wit,  so  moderate  compass  is  a  great 
advantage  in  an  Anacreontic  scene.  This  should 
be  elegant  and  pleasant ;  but  the  monstrous  ex- 
cludes elegance  and  pleasantness.  Roll's  Titans  and 
Cyclopses  are  not  suitable  for  masquerading  as 
Arcadian  shepherds. 

LUCIEN  SIMON,  a  painter  who  has  been  an 
imitator  of  Cottet,  puts  himself  forward  now,  by  an 
impetuous  movement,  into  rank  with  him.  "The 

262 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

Evening  Gossip"  unites  the  family  round  the  table 
lamp,  which  lights  up  a  number  of  richly  animated 
faces  with  curious  lights  that  play  and  flicker. 
"  Nuns  Collecting " — one  old  and  one  young  nun 
try  by  gentle  yet  tenacious  and  irrefusable  pressure 
to  overcome  the  resistance  of  a  well  -  to  -  do  and 
apparently  somewhat  niggardly  country  lady,  and 
to  determine  her  to  open  her  well-guarded  purse. 
In  a  "Ball-room  in  Brittany"  peasant  couples, 
in  the  dress  of  the  Celtic  province,  under  smoking 
lamps  emitting  a  yellow  light,  spin  round,  with 
heavy  stampings,  to  a  bagpipe  tune  which  drives  the 
blood  into  the  simple  dancers'  browned  cheeks,  and 
kindles  sparks  in  their  eyes.  All  this  is  stumped 
in  broadly  and  luxuriously  without  petty  dwelling 
on  the  less  essential,  yet  with  a  sure  feeling  for 
what  is  characteristic  in  appearance  and  movement, 
and  in  a  harmony  of  dark  colours,  which  is  as  far 
remote  from  the  bright  tone  of  the  style  of  painting 
in  vogue  the  day  before  yesterday  as  a  Guido  Reni 
is  from  a  Franz  Hals,  but  affirms  its  own  justification 
as  self-consciously  as  the  particular  note  struck  by  a 
Hennar  andGustave  Moreau  among  the  moderns,  of  a 
Velasquez  and  Rembrandt  among  the  greatest  ancients. 
Up  to  now,  his  most  important  creation  is  his 
"  Mass  in  Brittany,"  a  work  of  an  exquisite  nature. 
The  young  and  old  peasants  and  seamen  who 
hear  High  Mass  standing  in  the  bare  village 
church,  are  truly  and  lovingly  individualised  head 
by  head.  Proudly  renouncing  pleasing  externals, 

263 


On  Art  and  Artists 

L.  Simon  has  made  up  his  mind  to  produce  his 
effects  only  by  the  noblest  means,  viz.,  by  characteris- 
ing with  accuracy  these  manifold  types,  and  by  the 
depth  and  fulness  of  the  spiritual  life  of  these  pious 
folk  here  gathered  together.  Offence  has  been  taken 
at  the  broadness  of  his  execution,  which  already 
bordered  on  superficiality,  and  on  the  coarseness  of 
his  colour,  which  put  one  now  and  then  in  mind  of 
the  bill-poster's  newer  art.  He  has  laboured  con- 
scientiously on  himself,  and  diminished  the  defects 
of  his  qualities  without  weakening  the  latter.  He 
still  continues  to  paint  with  large  strokes  in  fresco 
style,  but  he  pays  attention  to  the  solid  building  of 
his  figures.  He  is  still  pronounced  and  unaffected  in 
his  colouring,  but  he  avoids  letting  power  degenerate 
into  coarseness,  and  expressiveness  into  shrillness. 
Thus  Lucien  Simon  rises  slowly  and  steadily,  though 
unerringly,  to  the  lofty  peaks  of  pre-eminence. 

JEAN  VEBER  is  quite  a  peculiar  phenomenon  which 
has  not  yet  been  deservedly  appreciated.  On  one 
characteristic  ground :  because  he  never  understood 
how  to  be  solemn ;  because  he  seems  not  to  take 
himself  or  his  art  seriously.  He  began  as  a 
caricature  draughtsman  for  Boulevard  papers,  and 
only  when  his  vocation  for  this  peculiar  province 
was  well  established,  did  he  exhibit  oil-paintings. 
But  he  was  already  labelled,  and  people  continue 
to  regard  him  merely  as  a  comic  draughtsman.  The 
public  refuses  to  allow  a  double  renown  to  a  single 

264 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

talent  Its  admiration,  you  know,  costs  nothing,  but 
it  is,  nevertheless,  scanty  with  it,  as  if  it  were 
bringing  a  sacrifice  obtainable  only  with  difficulty. 
That  is  a  royal  trait  in  the  sovereign  mob.  It  is 
niggardly  with  its  distinctions  in  order  to  enhance 
their  value.  The  splendid  Daumier  also  had  to 
suffer  from  this  coyness  on  the  part  of  the  public. 
For  a  long  time  nothing  was  thought  of  his  easel 
pictures,  and  it  was  really  the  Universal  Exhibition 
of  1900  that  first  revealed  to  posterity  the  fact  that 
Daumier  of  the  "  Charivari "  was  one  of  the  most 
important  French  painters  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  caricaturist  of  our  days  is,  as  it  were,  the 
journalist  among  plastic  artists,  and  we  know  that  it 
is  very  hard  for  journalists  to  succeed  with  poetical 
creations,  however  brilliant.  The  older  humorists 
among  the  painters  fared  better.  The  Dutch  painters 
could  make  rough  fun  of  the  life  of  the  populace 
without  injuring  their  reputation  as  artists  by  so 
doing.  Hogarth  attained  high  recognition,  although 
his  clumsy,  Philistine,  moralising  painting  ranks 
below  the  works  of  many  caricaturists  of  to-day. 
Cruikshank,  however,  whom  I  rank,  without  hesita- 
tion, above  Hogarth,  occupies,  in  popular  estimation, 
a  lower  rank,  because  he  put  his  pencil  at  the 
service  of  the  Press. 

Jean  Veber  is  the  descendant  in  the  direct  line  of 
the  younger  David  Teniers,  the  Adriaen  Brouwers, 
and  the  Hollen-Breughels.  From  them  he  derives 
his  full  style  of  painting,  his  deep,  rich  colours,  his 

265 


On  Art  and  Artists 

great  sureness  and  luxuriance  of  execution,  his  clear 
composition  and  florid  imagination.  He  differs,  how- 
ever, from  them  in  the  quality  of  his  fancy  which 
delights  in  symbols  replete  with  philosophical 
references  ;  frequently  in  Saadic  spectacles  of  cruelty 
and  lust,  and  very  often  in  lubricities  of  the  Felicien 
Rops  kind.  This  is  the  effect  of  the  hundred  and 
fifty  to  three  hundred  years  which  separate  him 
from  his  more  innocent  spiritual  ancestors. 

Of  the  pictures  he  has  exhibited,  some  are  un- 
forgettable, when  one  has  seen  them.  The  "Triumphal 
Procession  "  of  a  gigantic  crowned  goose  through  the 
streets  of  a  mighty  city,  amid  the  loud  applause  of  a 
populace  raving  mad  with  loyalty.  The  "Struggle 
for  Gold  "  of  a  number  of  awful  cripples  tearing  each 
other  to  pieces  in  their  mad  struggles  for  a  few  gold 
pieces  that  have  fallen  in  the  street ;  the  "  Sight  of 
Terror"  of  a  man  reeling  home  at  night,  apparently 
after  a  long  drinking-bout,  in  whose  eyes  the  houses 
and  monuments  take  weird,  living  physiognomies, 
are  most  impressive  utterances  of  the  misanthropic 
pessimism,  the  satiric  bitterness,  and  the  humour  of 
Veber,  also,  to  be  sure,  of  his  predilection  for  the 
weird,  the  ghostly,  and  the  horrible. 

These  qualities  are  repeated  in  almost  all  his  works 
up  to  now.  The  greatest  and  most  pretentious,  "  The 
Machine,"  offends  through  the  daring  symbolism  by 
which  he  illustrates  the  murderous  power  of  woman 
over  the  sensual  man.  On  the  other  hand,  "  Sunday 
Morning"  is  a  bit  of  life  observed  with  exquisite 

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Physiognomies  in  Painting 

humour :   a    barber's    shop    in    the    village,   with   a 
soaped  victim   under   the   nimble  but  not  too  con- 
siderate  hands   of  the    beard  -  shaver's   wife,   whilst 
some  other  customers,  of  unspeakable  comicality  in 
looks,  bearing,  and  dress,  smoking,  dreaming,  staring, 
or  chattering,  wait  their  turn  on  the  bench  by  the 
wall.      "  The  Hermit   and   the  Female  Faun "   is   a 
scarcely  orthodox,   but   keenly  witty   modernisation 
of  the  old  theme,  the  temptation  of  a  saint,  which 
these  square-toes  of  painters  for  the  past  five  hundred 
years  have  cherished  with  predilection,  since  it  permits 
them  to  present  quite  heathen  sights  with  a  hypo- 
critically contrite   air.   "  The  Three   Good  Friends " 
are  of  refreshing  cheeriness.     The  ugliness  of  these 
contented   louts  is  touching.     The  painter,  by  way 
of  exception,   exhibits  them  without  malice,  rather 
sympathetically,  with  a  plea  for  extenuating  circum- 
stances.     But    generally,    his    wit    belongs,    in    the 
main,  to   the    species   of   evil-speaking.     We   laugh 
over  the  malice  with  which  a  sharp-tongued  observer 
characterises  our  fellow-creatures,  but  we  feel  quite 
well  that  it  is  not  the  better  man  in  us  that  laughs. 
Jean  Veber  loves   to   mock   at   mankind   in   goblin 
fashion.    He  sees  men  perpendicularly  pushed  together 
like   a   telescope,  horizontally   drawn   out   as   short, 
square   gnomes   with   pumpkin   faces,   who,   pleased 
with  themselves  and  unconscious  of  their  grotesque 
ugliness,  strut  about  as  if  they  were  so  many  Apollos 
and  Dianas.     Thus  Jaures  appears  with  mouth  agape 
and    flourishing    gestures    on    the    rostrum    of    the 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

Chamber,  at  the  foot  of  which  breaks  a  flood  of 
blustering  deputies  in  stormy  session.  So  in  a  parody 
of  Rubens'  "  Kermes "  —  itself  of  the  nature  of  a 
parody — villagers  resembling  sacks  amuse  themselves 
with  feasting  and  drinking  and  amorous  tendernesses 
which  are  calculated  to  disgust  us  with  love  itself. 
A  grandly  rigged-out,  inexpressibly  laughing  lady 
in  a  low-cut  dress  between  two  greybeards  paying 
their  dreadful  court  at  an  exquisitely  appointed 
supper-table ;  a  physician  at  the  foot  of  the  bed 
gazing  with  devotion  at  the  tongue,  put  out  quite 
a  yard,  of  a  rich,  fat  lady-patient ;  a  short,  stout 
woman  in  a  fashionable  tailor's  salon,  whom  the 
slenderest  of  the  show-room  girls  is  trying,  with 
"  cake-walk "  movements,  to  fit  with  a  dress  like  an 
umbrella- cover,  are  amusing  in  their  stupidity  and 
ugliness.  On  the  other  hand,  I  cannot  follow  Jean 
Veber  further  when,  in  "Family  Joys,"  he  tries  to 
make  the  newborn  child  ridiculous — a  shapeless  bit 
of  sprawling  flesh,  red  as  a  crab,  which  the  midwife 
has  brought  from  the  bed  of  the  exhausted  mother 
at  the  back  of  the  room,  and  is  exhibiting  in  triumph 
to  the  gaping  family.  He  should  keep  his  sacrilegious 
hand  off  the  sanctity  of  this  event. 

The  happy  combination  of  a  faultless  dexterity  with 
an  arrogant,  creative  humour,  in  which  I  would  only 
like  to  see  a  trifle  less  admixture  of  gall,  renders 
Jean  Veber's  an  artistic  physiognomy  that  is  far 
more  interesting  than  many  an  idol  to  whom  altars 
are  raised. 

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Physiognomies  in  Painting 

EMILE  W£RY,  a  young  and  fortunate  man  of  talent, 
began  his  career  with  a  great  success.  His  view  of  an 
Amsterdam  canal  made  a  sensation,  and  gained  the 
great  prize  at  the  "  Salon."  Perhaps  a  little  stupefied 
by  this  triumph,  he  kept  for  a  while  to  the  style  of 
his  prize  picture,  so  that  there  was  reason  to  fear 
he  would  early  stiffen  into  a  manner.  He  painted, 
for  instance,  an  attractive  triptych,  which  presents 
Venice  to  us  in  her  three  characteristic  decorations  : 
the  narrow  Calle^  the  slender  Rio,  and  the  splendid 
Canal.  But  what  we  cannot  anyhow  fancy  absent 
from  a  view  of  Venice  —  the  southern  sky,  the 
gleaming  sun,  and  the  warm  tints  of  her  old  stones 
and  tiles  :  these  are  here  altogether  lacking.  It  is 
all  grey,  northern  grey.  It  is  the  same  tone  as  in 
the  prize  picture  of  Amsterdam.  As  Faust  found 
Helen  in  every  woman,  so  Wery  then  found 
apparently  Dutch  water-towns  in  every  town,  and 
Amsterdam  herself  in  Venice.  People  think  they 
are  flattering  the  city  on  the  Amstel,  when  they 
call  it  the  Venice  of  the  North.  W6ry  reversed  the 
compliment :  to  him  Venice  was  the  Amsterdam  of 
the  South.  How  true  it  is  that  we  see  not  with  the 
eyes  but  with  the  soul ! 

The  South,  combined  with  his  youthful  impulses 
to  development,  was  to  save  him  from  the  danger 
of  mannerism.  Though  he  had  seen  Venice  with 
his  Amsterdam  eyes,  and  found  in  the  azure  and 
gold  of  the  city  of  lagunes  the  leaden  waters  and 
mist  of  the  north,  further  south,  in  the  light,  he 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

bathed  his  eyes  clean  from  the  muddiness  of  higher 
latitudes.  In  "Sicily"  a  girl's  brown  head,  with  red 
cloth  in  the  midst  of  a  cluster  of  dark  green-leaved 
branches  with  ripe  oranges,  flashes  and  glows  the 
whole  noon  of  the  magic  island,  which  this  vigorous 
woman — a  golden  fruit  among  golden  fruits — is  to 
personify.  But  even  after  his  return  home  he  still 
remained  drunk  with  the  light  of  Italy.  In  a  new 
picture,  "The  Little  Ones,"  we  are  once  more  in  a 
harbour  on  the  North  Sea,  at  a  place  where  We"ry's 
talent  takes  its  root.  Flaxen-haired  youngsters  are 
playing  round  a  boat ;  one  of  these,  a  little  chap 
in  wide,  flapping  trousers,  is  droll  enough  to  eat. 
Water,  sky,  and  river -bank  are  wedded  in  silver 
sheen,  and  over  the  whole  reposes  a  happy  sense 
of  comfort,  in  which  the  artist's  cheerful  heart  is 
disclosed.  He  has  happily  got  over  his  first  crisis. 
Now  his  artistic  career  lies  smooth  and  sunny  before 
him. 

ANDERS  ZORN. — This  Swede  is  a  virtuoso  of 
amazing  skill.  He  delights  in  marvellous  effects  of 
light,  in  surprises,  in  fixing  fugitive  views.  His 
pictures  are  snap-shots  pitched  on  the  canvas  with 
an  almost  mechanically  smart  brush.  He  is  a 
concert  painter  possessing  talent.  He  is  one  of  the 
great  corruptors  of  young  artists  nowadays.  It  is 
so  fascinating,  by  a  few  wild,  staggering,  nimble 
strokes  of  the  brush,  to  conjure  up  a  human  figure 
or  a  scene.  But  this  method  leads  to  the  worst 

270 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

superficiality,  and  attracts  most  the  lazy  fellows  who 
wish  to  save  themselves  the  trouble  of  learning 
properly  the  principles  of  drawing  and  painting. 
Zorn  did  not  make  the  thing  easy  for  himself.  He 
honestly  and  industriously  acquired  a  thorough 
mastery  of  technique  before  turning  to  execute  his 
dazzling  little  pieces.  He  may  allow  himself  to 
storm  and  rage  over  the  canvas,  for  accuracy  has 
become  automatic  in  him.  In  spite  of  this  haste, 
every  line  is  on  the  right  spot,  and  though  people 
often  regret  that  he  only  hints  instead  of  stopping 
and  deepening,  nevertheless  it  is  continually  said  : 
"  The  man  knows  how  to  build  up  a  figure  or  a 
group."  His  imitators,  however,  have  caught  only 
his  daubing,  and  with  them  superficiality  is  but  a 
bold  excuse  for  ignorance  of  drawing. 

IGNACIO  ZULOAGA. — Spain  can  at  the  present  time 
boast  of  a  number  of  painters  who  might  call  out 
to  their  greatest  predecessors  among  their  country- 
men the  proud  ancttio.  What  characterises  them  is 
a  peculiar,  almost  mad  energy  in  drawing,  which 
appears  in  all  details,  in  the  living  and  the  dead,  not 
only  in  the  mien  and  attitudes  of  men,  but  in  the 
sharp  profile  of  every  leaf  and  blade  of  grass,  in  the 
bold  relief  of  every  stone,  in  the  aggressive  self- 
consciousness  of  every  being  as  of  every  thing.  This 
energy  is  not  to  be  learnt.  One  has  it  or  one  has  it 
not.  There  are  foreign  painters  in  plenty,  whom 
Spain  has  bewitched,  and  who  their  whole  life  long 

271 


On  Art  and  Artists 

recount  nothing  but  bull  -  fights  and  processions, 
shepherds  and  gipsies,  cigarreras  and  manolas ;  but 
no  one  who  knows  the  genuine  Spaniards  will 
confuse  these  with  the  foreign  imitators.  There  is, 
for  instance,  the  excellent  Jules  Worms.  He  has 
been  exhibiting  Spanish  scenes  uninterruptedly  for 
forty  years.  They  are  always  nicely  painted,  prettily 
conceived,  and  pleasantly  executed.  As  contributions 
to  knowledge  of  the  nation  they  are  not  without 
value.  They  have  gained  him  all  official  honours, 
and  he  passes  for  an  undisputed  master  of  his 
particular  province.  And  yet  how  un-Spanish  is  this 
life-long  Spanishness  of  Worms  and  all  his  rivals  and 
imitators !  It  is  as  smooth,  licked,  tricked  up,  enter- 
taining, and  banal  as  the  railway  novel  of  an  inquisitive 
but  superficial  globe-trotter.  It  is  a  conventional 
comic-opera  Spanishness,  a  theatre  decoration  for 
scenery,  with  groups  of  costumes  for  living  figures. 
It  lacks  the  power,  the  stern  virility  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  Spanish  painters,  even  those  of  the 
second  rank,  and  gives  them  a  family  likeness  to  their 
great  ancestors,  Valdes,  Velasquez,  and  Ribera. 

The  most  typical  of  these  modern  Spaniards  is 
Ignacio  Zuloaga,  and  the  most  typical,  perhaps, 
of  his  pictures  are  the  three  sketches  from  Spanish 
folk-life,  which  were  exhibited  a  few  years  ago  in  the 
"  Salon."  An  Andalusian,  young,  thin,  and  delicate, 
with  a  little  crumpled  face  of  apish  ugliness,  with 
a  supple  body  that  seems  to  whirl,  stands  in  front 
of  a  poor  mirror,  and  powders  her  face  with  coarse 

272 


Physiognomies  in  Painting 

rice-powder,  as  though  she  were  sticking  on  a  comic 
Pierrot-mask,  whilst  her  sparkling  eyes  testify  that 
she  wants  to  make  herself  thoroughly  beautiful  for 
the  bull-fight.  Then  we  see  her  in  loud,  bright 
ribbons,  with  the  inimitably  draped  mantilla  over 
her  head  and  shoulders,  passing  quickly  through  the 
street,  greeted  by  two  old  connoisseurs  with  highly- 
spiced  endearment.  On  the  third  occasion  she  or 
her  sister  goes  with  a  diabolically  piquant  young 
gipsy  girl,  whose  insolent  laugh  discovers  gleaming 
wolf's  teeth  and  turns  up  the  sharply-curved  nose, 
rapidly  over  the  ground,  probably  to  keep  a  Sabbath, 
from  the  expression  of  both  grimaces.  This  is  warm 
life  such  as  not  often  glows  on  painted  canvas. 
Zuloaga  has  felt  his  Andalusian  wild  creatures  to 
his  finger-tips,  and  renders  them  with  all  their  garbo 
and  salero — the  German  Schneid  and  Mumm,  and 
the  French  montant  and  mousseux  are  weak  transla- 
tions of  this  expression.  The  pictures  seem  to 
be  painted,  not  with  mineral  colours  and  oil,  but 
with  sulphuric  acid  and  lunar-caustic.  These  ladies 
are  young  witches,  of  whom  you  would  imagine 
that  by  touch  they  must  give  an  electric  shock 
like  a  torpedo-fish,  that,  if  they  open  their  mouths, 
red  mice  will  jump  out,  and  that  it  must  be  more 
natural  for  them  to  ride  through  the  air  on  a  broom- 
stick than  to  make  use  of  their  legs  in  the  usual  way. 
In  the  piquant  ugliness  of  their  faces,  made  up 
with  a  thick  layer  of  rice-powder,  in  the  gorgeous 
Sunday  array,  in  their  attitudes  and  movements,  in 

273  s 


On  Art  and  Artists 

the  gipsy-girl's  bestially  insolent  grinning  and  wink- 
ing, in  the  lustful  glances  and  laughter  of  the  men, 
there  is  a  fulness  of  hot  life,  an  insolent  sensuality 
such  as  is  only  met  with  in  Brangwyn's  youthful 
works.  One  often  heard  the  name  of  Goya  pro- 
nounced before  these  pictures.  It  is  indeed  the 
same  temperament,  but  another  outlook  on  life, 
another  art.  Zuloaga  has  much  of  the  cutting 
virtuosity  of  his  great  countryman ;  but  he  is  no 
embittered  critic  of  the  world,  rather  a  laughing 
Sunday's  child  who  enjoys  life  with  all  his  senses. 

And,  above  all,  his  pictures  are  patterns  of  a 
domestic  art  which,  through  its  unreserved  sincerity, 
is  at  the  same  time  an  universal  art.  For  it  reaches 
so  deeply  that  it  penetrates  beyond  the  special  type 
to  humanity  in  general. 


274 


XIII 


RODIN'S  place  in  present-day  art  is  a  peculiar  one. 
Auguste  Rodin  has  been  raised  to  the  dignity  of 
a  test  for  decadent  ways  of  feeling.  We  admittedly 
call  "  tests "  or  proof-objects  the  objects  (for  the 
most  part,  the  shell-armour  of  diatoms  or  the  scales 
of  butterflies'  wings)  on  which  the  magnifying  power 
and  exactness  of  analysis  of  microscopes  is  tested. 
By  Rodin  the  fanatics  and  snobs  of  insane  tendencies 
test  the  genuineness  and  power  of  symbolico-mystic 
sentiment.  What  do  you  think  of  Rodin  ?  Do  you 
admire  him  ?  Good :  then  you  need  further  only 
adore  Besnard  and  rave  about  Felicien  Rops,  and 
you  can  claim  to  be  numbered  with  the  newest, 
without  respect  to  the  colour  of  your  hair  or  oppor- 
tunist baldness.  You  do  not  admire  Rodin  ?  Then 
sneak  whimpering  from  our  league.  You  are  no 
decadent.  No  beauty  with  her  hair  combed  in  the 
Botticelli  style  will  love  you ;  Mallarm^  will  not 
write  poems,  nor  will  Nietzsche  philosophise  for  you. 

275 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Nobody  will  invite  you  even  to  a  Black  Mass.  Go 
to  the  Philistines  ;  you  belong  to  the  narrow-minded 
community,  which  is  a  herd  of  ruminants. 

It  would  be  intelligible  if  the  provocations  of 
the  shriekers,  who,  after  the  manner  of  howling 
dervishes,  dance  and  rave  round  Rodin,  were  to 
induce  men  to  take  a  violent  part  against  this 
very  man.  Justice,  however,  demands  that  people 
should  suppress  their  natural  tendency  to  make 
him  responsible  for  the  ear  -  piercing  din  of  his 
drummers  and  trumpeters.  After  all,  he  cannot  help 
a  horde  of  swindlers  and  silly  people  making  a 
vulgar  disturbance  about  him  and  his  works.  If 
we  are  to  judge  him,  we  must  try  to  forget  that 
critical  offenders,  by  invoking  his  name,  continually 
outrage  the  sense  of  aesthetic  decorum  and  artistic 
conscience.  Rodin  is,  in  fact,  not  the  originator 
of  this  shameless  proceeding,  but  the  victim  of  the 
aesthetic  Catiline  conspirators  who  have  got  posses- 
sion of  him,  and  are  pushing  him  on  before  them, 
so  that  it  looks  from  a  distance  as  if  he  was  their 
leader.  Rodin  is  not  the  least  cabotin.  He  is  of  a 
modest,  homely  nature,  but  no  strong  character  ;  and 
he  has  not  been  able  to  stand  against  the  suggestions 
of  those  whose  interest  it  is  to  eulogise  him,  who  have 
for  so  long  chattered  his  poor  head  full  of  their 
most  brain-firing,  aesthetic  doctrines,  and  most  pro- 
found interpretations  of  his  alleged  purposes,  until  he 
has  lost  his  own  personality,  and  makes  the  most 
desperate  efforts  to  become  like  the  picture  which 

276 


Auguste  Rodin 

his  critical  Corybantes  present  of  him  to  the  open- 
mouthed  gapers. 

What  has  raised  Rodin  to  an  article  of  faith  among 
the  degenerates  is  three  peculiarities.  First,  the 
choice  of  his  materials,  which  appeal  to  the  mysticism 
and  sensual  psychopathy  of  his  body  -  guard  of 
degenerates  ;  secondly,  his  technique,  "which  deviates 
from  tradition  in  childish,  would-be-original  whims  ; 
and  thirdly,  his  mistaking  the  natural  limitations 
of  his  art,  which  he  wants  to  make  say  things  for 
which  sculpture  possesses  no  means  of  expression. 
These  traits  are  proved  by  a  short  review  of  his 
principal  works. 

The  production  which  first  brought  him  the  custom 
of  the  decadents  is  a  composition  which  was  devised 
for  the  gate  of  Dante's  Inferno.  He  had  worked  at 
it  for  decades.  After  a  few  fragments,  which  were 
to  be  seen  in  1889  in  the  Universal  Exhibition 
at  Paris,  he  showed  the  whole  in  a  plaster  model 
at  his  private  exhibition  of  1900.  It  is  inspired 
unmistakably  by  Ghiberti's  door  of  the  Baptistery 
at  Florence,  but  stands  in  intentional  contrast  to 
it  The  great  Quattrocentist  depicts  life  in  Paradise ; 
Rodin's  intention  is  to  show  existence  in  Hell. 
The  framing  and  articulation  of  the  work,  and 
nearly  all  its  details,  were  rendered  with  organic 
necessity  from  this  starting-point.  The  door  is  cut  up 
into  panels,  which  are  not  divided  by  stiff,  geometrical 
lines,  but,  just  as  in  the  case  of  Ghiberti,  are  at  the 
same  time  immediately  separated,  and  again  indirectly 

277 


On  Art  and  Artists 

connected  into  a  higher  unity,  by  a  feature  of  the 
picture  itself,  e.g.,  a  cliff,  a  man's  figure,  a  piece  of 
building.  In  every  panel  an  act  from  the  Inferno  is 
played.  The  parts,  in  the  majority  of  cases  indicated 
only  in  a  sketchy  way,  betray  strong,  indeed  mainly 
perversely  directed,  erotic  imagination,  and  the  gift  of 
exhibiting  human  bodies  in  the  movements  of  passion. 
Of  course,  Rodin,  too,  has  not  dropped  down  from 
heaven,  but  is  the  descendant  of  easily  demonstrable 
spiritual  forefathers.  This  sculpture  of  violent  action, 
a  particular  development  of  French  art,  and  in 
no  way  connected  with  the  Laocoon,  as  one  might 
easily  make  the  mistake  of  assuming,  has  its  first 
master  in  Rude,  whose  power  is  revealed  most  grandly 
in  the  "  Marseillaise  "  on  the  Triumphal  Arch  at  Paris. 
Rude's  successor  and  continuer  is  the  incomparable 
Carpeaux,  who,  as  is  most  clear  from  his  group  "  The 
Dance"  at  the  Grand  Opera,  in  place  of  the  wild 
heroes  of  his  model  and  master,  substituted  wild 
Bacchantes ;  who  celebrated,  instead  of  self-oblivious 
joy  in  sacrifice  in  the  service  of  rugged  duty,  self- 
oblivious  intoxication  in  a  debauch  of  sensuality,  but 
represented  a  life  of  excitement  no  less  sublimely  and 
no  less  ravishingly  than  the  former.  Rodin  is  closely 
connected  with  Rude  and  Carpeaux.  With  him 
passion  descends  a  step  lower  still  to  the  uncivilised 
and  dissolute.  Heroic  with  Rude,  voluptuous  with 
Carpeaux,  it  is  Satanic  with  Rodin.  The  "  Gate  of 
Hell"  exhibits  rows  of  naked  women  in  all  the 
situations  and  occupations  of  the  witches'  Sabbath, 

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Auguste  Rodin 

when  it  is  most  devilish.  Fits  of  hysteria  shake  and 
twist  these  bodies,  every  motion  of  which  betrays 
shock-ing  aberration  and  eager  Sadism.  The  patients 
of  the  Salpetriere  or  the  Atlas  of  Pictures  edited  in 
this  clinique  (Iconographie  de  la  Salpetriere}  evidently 
served  him  for  models.  And  from  him,  be  it 
incidentally  observed,  Alexander  appears  to  have 
drawn  his  inspirations  with  the  aggravating  circum- 
stance that  he  clothes  Rodin's  naked  women  in  rich, 
modern  toilettes,  and  by  this  artful  means  makes 
them  even  more  obscene.  The  feminine  genius  of 
tragedy  in  Rude  is  inspired  by  Tyrtaean  war-songs. 
Carpeaux's  two  female  dancers  have  drunk  sparkling 
wine ;  Rodin's  demoniac  women  have  swallowed  pills 
of  Spanish-fly.  Thus  it  is  clear  that  Rodin  must  be 
dear  to  all  wanton  schoolboys,  impotent  debauchees, 
and  incipient  spinal  sufferers. 

If  the  "Gate  of  Hell"  is  an  illustration  of  hystero- 
epilepsy  and  feminine  Sadism,  so,  too,  is  a  marble 
group  which  he  exhibited  in  1898  of  Masochism. 
A  naked  woman  with  horribly  glacial,  unmoved 
features  sits  leaning  against  a  wall  of  rock.  A 
man,  apparently  growing  out  of  the  earth,  kneels 
before  the  merciless  image,  embraces  its  knees  with 
despairingly  imploring  gesture,  and  presses  his  head 
against  its  body.  This  is  supposed  to  show  man  in 
an  ecstasy  of  desire,  subjugated  by  the  sexual  power 
of  woman.  I  can  only  say  that  a  copy  of  this 
group  would  excellently  suit  as  a  frontispiece  for 
an  edition  of  the  collected  works  of  Sacher-Masoch. 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

Other  smaller  groups  of  Rodin,  which  he  exhibited 
in  the  Champs  de  Mars  Salon,  hint  at  other  forms 
of  morbid  sensuality  on  which  I  am  reluctant  to 
dwell.  They  all  disclose  a  sub-soil  of  corrupted 
sensuality  in  the  artist's  soul.  That  secures  him 
influence  on  natures  in  harmony  with  his  own. 
The  degenerates  who  revel  with  Baudelaire  in  love 
of  corpses,  and  with  Felicien  Rops  in  highly- 
spiced  lewdness,  find  the  same  excitation  in  Rodin, 
and  they  intoxicate  themselves  with  his  ecstatic 
lasciviousness  just  as  with  the  unnatural  or  madly 
exaggerated  eroticism  of  their  other  fleshly  poets 
and  painters. 

So  much  for  Rodin's  choice  of  themes.  Now  for 
his  technique.  One  of  his  singularities  is  that  he 
loves  to  astonish  people  by  a  crude,  external  con- 
trast between  a  block  of  unworked  marble  and  the 
most  exquisitely  finished  and  sweetly  polished 
sculpture  of  bodies.  He  takes  a  great  cube  out  of 
all  proportion,  which  he  leaves  as  the  labourer  hewed 
it  as  it  came  out  of  the  quarry ;  and  he  works  a  little 
corner  of  it  into  a  head  and  body  polished  with 
the  utmost  nicety.  In  this  way,  the  figure  grows 
out  of,  or  into,  the  natural  stone.  Looked  at  from 
three  sides,  a  lump  of  rock  or  stone  is  presented  to 
the  eye,  only  on  the  fourth  side  the  work  of  art  is 
revealed,  blooming,  as  it  were,  in  the  wilderness.  We 
may  describe  this  manner  as  the  sculptural  form  of 
mysticism.  The  association  of  ideas  which  Rodin 
wishes  to  awaken  by  this  device  should  make  the  idea 

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Aug-uste  Rodin 

dawn  on  the  consciousness  that  here,  before  our 
eyes,  a  miracle  of  creation  is  being  accomplished  ; 
that  we  surprise  the  very  incarnation  of  the  stone ; 
that  we  are  witnesses  of  the  birth  of  organic  form 
from  the  stiff,  lifeless  original  matter,  and  may 
observe  how  the  figure,  still  half  imprisoned  in 
chaos,  struggles  painfully  forth  to  a  form  instinct 
with  life.  There  are  subjects  for  the  representation 
of  which  Rodin's  style  would  have  been  a  happy 
invention  :  perhaps  the  creation  of  Adam  from  a  clod 
of  earth,  or  the  story  of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha,  or 
a  Promethean  motive.  But  its  uniform  employment 
for  all  possible  subjects — on  banal  busts  or  groups 
which  have  no  reference  to  creation  or  genesis — 
causes  the  manner  to  be  recognised  for  what  it  is, 
a  snatching  at  effect  by  means  of  eccentricity.  Of 
course,  this  striking  and  easily  imitatable  freak 
has  founded  a  school.  No  American  or  Scandi- 
navian who  wants  to  frighten  the  Philistines 
with  "modernism"  neglects  to  exhibit  a  piece  of, 
for  the  most  part,  wretched  sculpture  as  tiny  as 
possible  on  a  clump  of  unworked  rock  as  Cyclopean 
as  possible.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  joke  is 
cheap.  The  unhewn  block  of  marble  often  repre- 
sents a  pretty  stiff  value  in  hard  cash,  in  any  case 
a  higher  one  than  the  corner  that  has  been 
chiselled.  One  can  only  say  that  any  idiot  can 
succeed  in  using  a  ton  weight  of  stone  as  a  support 
to  a  figure  the  size  of  a  man's  hand. 

Yet,  in  conclusion,  it  is  a  comparatively  harmless 
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On  Art  and  Artists 

folly  which  a  practitioner  can  remedy  with  a  few 
strokes  of  the  saw.  It  is  sufficient  to  cut  the 
sculpture  off,  and  give  the  rough  block  to  a 
needy  sculptor.  Far  worse,  because  it  is  incurable, 
is  the  aesthetic  principle  to  which  Rodin  pays 
homage  in  the  technique  of  his  more  important 
works  especially.  He  is,  to  wit,  an  Impressionist. 
A  line  of  motion  in  an  individuality  or  group 
interests  him.  He  seizes  it,  shapes  it  with  convinc- 
ing truth,  with  an  emphasis  exaggerated — certainly 
purposely — to  the  point  of  caricature,  and  neglects 
everything  that  does  not  serve  to  illustrate  this  line 
of  motion.  Sculpture,  however,  is  an  art  which 
does  not  allow  any  Impressionism.  It  demands, 
according  to  its  nature,  a  perfectly  accurate  forma- 
tion of  the  whole  figure,  and  simple  honesty  in 
reproducing  the  phenomenon.  This  can  be  proved 
by  a  theory  of  perception.  Sculpture  fills  space  and 
is  of  three  dimensions  ;  it  addresses  itself,  in  the  first 
place,  certainly  to  the  eye,  but  also  to  the  sense  of 
touch.  It  calls  for  stereoscopic  vision,  and  is,  at 
least  in  theory,  capable  of  further  proof  by  a 
second  sense.  Now  just  this  theoretic  possibility  of 
further  proof,  by  means  of  the  sense  of  touch,  has 
the  prohibitive  effect,  that  fancy  feels  no  inclination 
to  supplement  the  image  provided  by  the  sense  of 
sight.  In  works  of  painting  we  add  in  our  mind 
much  which  is  not  optically  given  in  the  picture. 
In  plastic  works  we  have  not  this  psychical  habit, 
because  a  testing  with  the  hands  is  opposed  to 

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Auguste  Rodin 

the  free,  inventive  power  of  the  imagination,  and 
makes  us  at  once  recognise  what  has  been  given 
in  space,  and  what  has  been  added  by  our  imagina- 
tion. On  this  ground,  there  is  no  place  in  sculpture 
for  intentions  or  hints.  That  is  enough  for  a  rough 
plan,  but  not  for  the  finished  work.  Rodin,  however, 
stops  at  a  stage  of  completion,  which  may,  at  best, 
pass  for  a  promise,  but  never,  in  any  case,  for  an 
achievement.  He  deliberately  breaks  up  the  frame 
of  artistic  form.  He  would  fain  work  with  the 
habits  of  the  painter's  eye  and  the  painter's  hand, 
and  he  applies  this  treatment  to  the  statute,  standing 
free  and  exposed  to  examination  from  all  sides. 

The  confused  lines  which  represent  the  draughts- 
man's first  sketch  (tbauche)  have  their  special  charm 
and  meaning  on  the  surface  to  be  painted.  If,  how- 
ever, you  translate  them  into  three  dimensions,  if 
every  careless  movement  of  the  artist's  hand,  either 
still  feeling  its  way  or  hurrying  on,  is  finally  fixed 
in  clay  or  bronze,  something  inadmissible  results, 
which  has  no  right  to  proclaim  itself  a  work  of  art. 

Such  a  seeking  after  the  right  expression,  such  a 
stammering  in  metal  is  Rodin's  monument  at  Calais, 
which  represents  the  burgesses  of  Calais  with  the  rope 
round  their  necks,  standing  before  Edward  III.,  who 
had  successfully  besieged  that  city,  and  asking  for 
mercy.  The  crushed  spirit  which  Rodin  tried  to 
express  is  actually  visible  in  the  group ;  but  the 
figures  which  express  this  emotion  are  formless  from 
head  to  foot.  The  limbs  are  rugged  boughs ;  the 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

bodies  violate  the  laws  of  anatomy ;  the  whole  group 
is  on  the  stage  of  technical  perfection  reached  by  the 
idols  hewn  from  wood  by  the  South  Sea  Islanders, 
and  is  far  inferior  to  many  a  pre-historic  picture  on 
mammoth's  teeth  and  stag's  horn,  which  may  be 
seen,  for  instance,  in  the  Museum  of  St  Germain. 
Rodin's  domestic  trumpeters  promptly  proclaimed 
this  for  a  work  of  lofty  genius.  The  Corporation  of 
the  town  of  Calais,  who  had  ordered  it,  dared  not 
reject  it.  The  decadents'  reign  of  terror — it  was  in 
the  year  1895 — was  then  in  all  its  fury.  The  whole 
Paris  Press  was  in  the  power  of  the  dictators  of  the 
Chat  Noir,  and  the  poor  Calais  burgesses,  clever 
men  of  business,  but  very  uncertain  in  questions  of 
art,  feared  to  be  jeered  at  as  wise  men  of  Gotham,  if 
they  rebelled  against  the  aesthetic  edicts  of  the  tyrants 
of  Paris  criticism.  But  they  blush  for  shame  and 
anger  whenever  they  pass  by  the  memorial,  and  now, 
when  the  reign  of  terror  of  decadent  criticism  is 
over,  it  will  probably  not  be  long  before  the  Calais 
people  pluck  up  courage  enough  to  have  Rodin's 
bronze  abomination  carted  off  from  the  public  square, 
and  withdrawn,  in  a  store-room  in  the  Town  Hall, 
from  the  scornful  eyes  of  strangers. 

A  counterpart  of  the  Calais  group  is  the  design 
for  the  Victor  Hugo  Memorial,  which  was  for  the 
first  time  exhibited  in  1897,  and  again  five  years 
later,  when  it  was  somewhat  further  advanced.  This 
design  also  showed  nothing  but  intentions.  The 
poet  is  sitting  naked  by  the  seashore.  The  last 

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Auguste  Rodin 

shallow  wave  washes  gently  up  to  his  feet.  Two 
female  tutelary  figures — perhaps  History  and  Legend, 
or  Poetry  and  Philosophy  —  are  flying  to  him 
horizontally  at  the  level  of  his  head  and  whisper- 
ing secrets  in  his  ear.  As  a  mere  intention,  the 
composition  might  be  allowed  to  pass ;  but  nothing 
of  execution,  practically,  was  yet  to  be  seen.  Victor 
Hugo's  body  was  not  modelled  ;  the  flying  female 
figures  could  not  be  distinguished,  either  from  a 
distance  or  on  close  inspection,  from  cloud  packs, 
or  the  fantastic  animal  figures  of  Gothic  gargoyles. 
Nevertheless,  Rodin  disarmed  intelligent  criticism  by 
declaring  that  the  work  was  a  mere  sketch.  Of 
course,  he  could  no  longer  be  fairly  reproached  with 
its  shapelessness,  and  people  had  to  content  them- 
selves with  waiting  for  its  completion,  which  has  not 
come  to  pass  up  to  now. 

Rodin  has  overstepped,  in  his  Balzac  Memorial, 
which  he  first  exhibited  in  1898,  the  very  extensive 
limits  within  which  his  silly  aberrations  might  have 
been  borne.  Master  Shallow,  who  tolerates  much, 
could  not  tolerate  this  work,  and  broke  down  under 
its  crushing  exaction.  When  the  public  saw  this 
provocative  monstrosity,  it  broke  out  into  that  uncon- 
trollable laughter,  whereby  the  outraged  intelligence 
of  mankind  revenges  itself  with  primitive  force  for 
restraints  that  it  has  long  suffered  in  silence.  In  the 
face  of  this  result,  the  Committee  of  the  French 
Union  of  Authors,  which  had  commissioned  the 
Balzac  Memorial,  resolved  unanimously  to  decline 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

it.  In  vain  the  Condottieri,  who  had  usurped 
supremacy  in  art  criticism  by  the  most  unscrupulous 
methods  of  conspiracy,  violence,  and  oppression,  made 
desperate  efforts  to  maintain  themselves.  They  were 
powerless  against  the  armed  rising  of  sensible  people 
who  had  at  last  come  to  themselves.  Their  tyranny 
was  vanquished,  and  they  were  swept  away.  They 
might  still  talk  all  sorts  of  twaddle  about  the  stupidity 
of  the  masses,  and,  in  impotent  rage,  hiss  at  the 
victors  the  well-known  shibboleths,  "  Philistine,"  "  pro- 
vincial," etc.,  but  this  final,  faint-hearted  nagging 
sank  unheard  in  the  unanimous  cry  of  scorn  from 
public  opinion. 

Rodin  has  represented  Balzac  as,  jumping  out  of 
bed  in  the  morning,  he  wraps  himself  unclad  in  his 
monk-like  dressing-gown,  without  even  putting  his 
arms  in  the  sleeves,  irresistibly  impelled  to  hurry 
to  his  writing-table  in  order  to  fix  the  thoughts  of 
which  his  creative  brain  is  full  to  bursting.  Agreed  : 
that,  again,  is  the  intention  which  Rodin  might, 
perhaps,  have  secretly  put  into  the  figure.  What  the 
eye  really  sees  is  a  sort  of  tree-trunk,  hewn  in  the 
roughest  manner  by  a  woodman  with  an  axe,  which  is 
surmounted  by  a  hideously  swollen  tadpole  head  on  a 
goitred  neck.  Malicious  Parisian  wit  has  exhausted 
all  the  droll  comparisons  that  this  monstrosity  can 
suggest  to  flouting  humour.  People  have  called 
Rodin's  work  a  meal-sack,  a  carved  potato,  a  snow- 
man made  by  a  cheeky  schoolboy,  an  unpacked 
statue,  a  stalactite,  etc.  The  work  is  all  that,  for  it 

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Auguste  Rodin 

is  nothing  at  all ;  but  it  is  pre-eminently  the  conclusive 
refutation  of  Rodin's  aesthetics.  For  it  is  the  highest 
expression,  and,  on  that  account,  the  unintentional 
parody,  of  his  impressionist  technique  and  of  his 
third  mistake,  viz.,  ignorance  of  the  limitations  of 
his  art. 

Rodin  worked  at  this  wretched  piece  of  work  for 
ten  whole  years.  First  he  read  all  Balzac's  works  ; 
then  he  made  a  journey  to  Touraine  and  spent 
months  there,  so  as  to  absorb  the  human  environment 
from  which  Balzac  took  so  many  of  his  models,  and  to 
become  permeated  with  the  feelings  and  impressions 
with  which  Balzac  may  have  satiated  himself  when 
composing — all  this  to  make  a  human  figure  which 
was  to  be  the  likeness  of  a  man  whom  many  people 
now  living  have  known  in  the  flesh.  After  these  pre- 
liminary studies,  Rodin  finally  proceeded  to  form 
his  Balzac.  His  head  was  to  be  "a  synthesis  of 
his  works,"  his  physiognomy  was  to  be  summed  up 
"in  an  eye  that  looks  on  the  Comtdie  humaine  and 
in  an  upper  lip  that  is  curled  in  contempt  for 
humanity."  So  said  Rodin  himself  in  several  inter- 
views which  were  published  at  the  time  when  his 
statue  was  exhibited.  He  was  then  merely  repeat- 
ing what  the  twaddlers  of  Montmartre  had  chattered 
to  him.  It  would  be  easy  to  make  jests  about 
this  inflammation  of  the  brain,  but  it  is  not  worth 
even  cheap  raillery.  It  is  quite  enough  to  establish, 
soberly  and  drily,  that  Rodin,  like  a  child  or  an 
idiot,  aimed  at  something  impossible.  Sculpture 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

cannot  furnish  any  "  synthesis  of  Balzac's  works." 
Nature  herself  cannot,  in  the  sense  that  Balzac 
himself,  when  he  was  alive,  did  not  synthetise  his 
works,  in  his  externals,  in  his  physiognomy.  He 
had  perhaps  the  head  of  a  man  of  mark,  but  there 
was  assuredly  nothing  in  his  face  to  show  that  he 
had  written  the  "  Physiology  of  Marriage,"  and  not 
written  "  La  Chartreuse  de  Parme "  (Stendhal). 
Rodin  imagined  that  a  portrait-statue  could  quite 
alone,  merely  by  its  own  means,  supply  the  place 
of  a  biography  and  a  psychological  and  literary 
characterisation  of  the  person  represented.  This 
patent  lunacy  was  necessarily  bound  to  end,  as  it 
has  ended,  in  a  mad  caricature. 

"The  Thinker,"  a  colossal  statue  which  was 
exhibited  in  1904,  is  almost  as  bad  an  aberration 
as  Balzac.  It  is  a  gigantic  enlargement  of  a  little 
sketch  that  one  saw  many  years  ago  over  Rodin's 
"  Gate  of  Dante's  Hell,"  in  the  confused  and  scarcely 
indicated  unborn  foetus  lines  of  which  confident 
devotion  might  imagine  all  possible  promises  of 
future  splendour. 

The  promises  are  realised  in  "The  Thinker."  He 
who  still  wishes  to  shudder  with  foreboding  in  the 
presence  of  the  finished  work  will  be  at  liberty  to 
do  so.  It  will  be  the  same  sort  of  man  who  grew 
enthusiastic  over  the  "Balzac,"  before  which  every 
criticism  of  intelligent  —  not  "  intellectual "  —  men 
dissolved  into  unextinguishable  laughter.  "The 
Thinker "  is  brother  of  the  "  Balzac,"  only  it  is  not 

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Auguste  Rodin 

so  comic,  for  it  is  not  dressed  in  a  meal-sack,  but  is 
naked,  and  the  bared  human  body,  when  misshapen, 
excites  in  a  spectator  of  unvitiated  taste,  not  cheerful- 
ness, but  discomfort,  which  may  even  rise  to  loathing. 
"  The  Thinker  "  is  not  only  naked,  but  also  flayed. 
Its  anatomy  is  executed  with  obtrusive  import- 
ance, without  the  covering  epidermis  with  its  vital 
warmth.  The  enormous  exaggeration  of  the  muscles, 
the  impossible  assertion  of  strength  which  is  ex- 
pressed by  the  extreme  contraction  of  all  the 
muscles,  therefore  also  of  the  counteracting  muscles, 
are  well-known  features  of  sculpture  in  its  worst 
period  of  decline.  There  is  still,  however,  a  dis- 
tinction between  Rodin  and  the  rococo  sculptors,  who 
confused  fleshy  tumours  over  the  whole  surface  of 
the  bodies  of  their  statues  with  the  power  of  portray- 
ing artistically.  At  any  rate,  the  latter  had  a  correct 
knowledge  of  myology,  or  the  subject  of  the  muscles, 
whereas  Rodin's  anatomy  is  shockingly  inaccurate. 
I  really  do  not  think  much  of  Lorenzo  Matthielly's 
groups  at  the  Vienna  Hofburg-gates ;  but  in  the  face 
of  Rodin's  monstrosity  I  apologise  in  my  heart  for  all 
the  objections  I  have  ever  made  against  them.  At 
any  rate,  with  Matthielly  every  muscle  occupies  its 
proper  place.  Rodin,  however,  invents  muscles  which 
do  not  exist,  and  never  did  exist.  Two  mighty 
ridges,  ending  below  in  sausage-tips,  run  down  the 
"  Thinker's  "  back,  which  are  perhaps  intended  for  the 
two  longissimi  dorsi ;  in  this  case,  however,  they  are 
howling  blunders  as  regards  their  attachment,  their 

289  T 


On  Art  and  Artists 

whole  course,  and  their  form.  The  muscles  of  the 
forehead  and  temples  are  treated  quite  as  arbitrarily 
as  those  of  the  back.  Where  nature  only  recognises 
thin  cutaneous  muscles  and  ligatures,  there  Rodin 
puts  bumps  which  remind  one  of  blood  tumours  after 
blows  from  a  club,  and  impart  to  the  face  the  appear- 
ance of  evil  Verschlagenheit ;  not,  as  Fritz  Reuter 
says,  in  the  sense  of  craftiness,  but  in  that  of  receiving 
a  sound  cudgeling.  As  a  record  "The  Thinker" 
stands  on  the  same  level  as  the  anatomical  plates 
in  Japanese  manuals  of  the  healing  art  of  the  time 
of  the  Shoguns. 

This,  however,  is  not  yet  the  worst ;  the  intel- 
lectual element  fares  even  worse  than  the  bodily  one 
with  this  oaf  who  calls  himself  so  pretentiously  "  The 
Thinker."  The  flayed  man  sits  crouching,  with  a 
distinctly  crooked  hump,  on  a  sharp-edged  block  of 
stone.  His  toes  claw  convulsively  into  the  ground. 
He  holds  a  clenched  fist  before  his  mouth,  and 
seems  to  bite  it  fiercely.  His  bestial  countenance, 
with  its  bloated,  contracted  forehead,  gazes  as 
threateningly  dark  as  midnight.  He  who  has  to 
interpret  the  figure  without  the  help  of  a  title  will, 
from  a  back  view,  conclude  it  is  some  one  writhing 
in  agony  on  the  rack  ;  and  from  a  front  view,  a 
criminal  meditating  over  some  foul  deed.  Its  mien 
and  bearing  would  suggest  a  designation  such  as 
"  The  Fallen  Titan,"  "  Lucifer's  Rebellion,"  or  "  Cain 
before  he  murdered  his  Brother."  The  last  thing 
which  one  would  think  of  would  be  to  look  for  a 

290 


Auguste  Rodin 

mind  working  behind  this  bulgy  forehead,  or  to 
imagine  that  thought  was  supreme  in  this  body 
seized  by  a  spasm  of  rigidity  in  all  its  muscles. 
The  name  given  by  Rodin  to  this  wretched  per- 
formance sounds  like  a  scoff  or  a  calumny,  and  it 
might  be  thought  the  misled  artist,  robbed  by  his 
fanatics  of  all  self-criticism,  had  intended  to  make 
a  malicious  parody  of  Michael  Angelo's  Pensieroso. 
Rodin  himself,  by  his  portrait  busts,  makes  it 
possible  to  gauge  the  whole  insincerity  of  his  pose 
as  a  profound  thinker,  and  his  genius-playing 
arrogance ;  for  instance,  by  that  of  Octave  Mirbeau, 
and,  still  more  easily,  by  a  female  bust  which  was 
exhibited  at  the  same  time  as  "  The  Thinker " 
monstrosity.  With  the  exception  of  the  folly,  which 
is,  moreover,  not  too  obtrusive,  that  a  piece  of  the 
rough  block  was  allowed  to  remain  on  both  shoulders, 
there  was  not  the  faintest  feature  in  the  bust 
that  could  differentiate  it  from  a  severely  classical, 
coldly  correct  work.  Here  he  had  to  satisfy  a  lady 
client,  and  he  was  irreproachably  smooth,  executed 
all  the  details  lovingly,  and  produced  a  soft,  delicate 
flesh,  to  which  the  elegant  Injalbert  might  sign  his 
name.  If  one  were  desirous  of  making  an  objection 
to  this  pleasant  bust,  it  would,  at  worst,  be  that  it  is 
too  sweet.  He  becomes  the  destroyer  of  all  form,  the 
bungling  sham-Titan,  the  inscrutable  philosopher, 
dramatist,  and  lyric  poet,  whose  eye  rolls  in  a  fine 
frenzy,  and  who,  in  the  throes  of  his  fever  to  create, 
confines  himself  to  hurried  indications — he  becomes 

291 


On  Art  and  Artists 

all  this  only  when  he  works  for  his  bodyguard  of 
sympathetic  sensitivism. 

How  future  generations  will  laugh  over  all  this 
buffoonery  of  "  nerve  art " !  Only,  indeed,  when  it 
comes  to  know  the  comments  of  contemporary 
"intellectuals"  in  addition  to  the  artists'  silly 
bungling.  For  the  former  will  show  them  in  a  way 
to  excite  sympathy  and  amusement  what  devastation 
the  deafening  babble  of  a  band  of  gossips,  dreadfully 
ignorant  of  art  and  innocent  of  any  feeling  for  beauty, 
could  produce  in  the  taste  and  thought  of  a  large 
majority,  which  honestly  yearns  after  aesthetic  educa- 
tion, but,  on  account  of  a  lack  of  trustworthy 
traditions  and  adequate  instruction  in  art,  has  not 
sufficient  self-confidence  to  set  up  the  promptings, 
however  obscure,  of  their  own  feeling  against  the 
impudent  dictates  of  presumptuous  arbiters  of  taste. 

Mysticism  and  sexual  psychopathy  in  the  choice 
of  themes;  Impressionism  and  incidental  eccentricities 
in  technique ;  overstepping  the  limitations  of  his  art, 
have  made  Rodin  the  great  man  of  the  fellows  who 
for  some  two  decades  have  set  the  fashion  in  art  and 
literature.  By  these  three  peculiarities,  to  which  he 
owes  his  spurious  celebrity,  he  will  be  ruined  as  an 
artist,  whatever  the  success  he  owes  to  puffing  may 
be.  And  that  is  lamentable,  for  Rodin  is  a  genuinely 
gifted  sculptor,  who  created  beauty  when  he  did 
not  yet  think  himself  bound  to  work  out  of 
gratitude  to  the  "young"  journals.  Unfortunately, 
it  is  extremely  improbable  that  he  will  now  find 

292 


Auguste  Rodin 

his  way  back  to  that  simplicity  and  naturalness  in 
which  salvation  is  alone  attainable.  There  is  no 
return  from  Montmartre,  not,  at  any  rate,  for  an  old 
man  who  has  climbed  this  height  and  accepted  with 
passionate  earnestness  all  what  he  saw  and  heard 
there  in  advanced  years.  Young  people  who  are 
still  capable  of  change,  in  many  cases  awake  from 
the  idle  dream  of  Montmartre  aestheticism.  Nature 
does  not  vouchsafe  to  the  old  to  begin  a  new  life. 


293 


XIV 
RESURRECTION 

BARTHOLOME 

I  DO  not  want  to  speak  of  Tolstoi's  novel,  but 
of  a  work  of  art — great,  at  any  rate,  materially,  as  a 
statue — which  every  pilgrim  to  Paris  will,  I  suppose, 
wish  to  see,  viz.,  the  monument  which  Bartholome 
dedicated  "  To  the  Dead,"  and  which  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  cemetery  of  Pere  Lachaise. 

It  is  interesting  in  so  many  aspects  that  one  might 
devote  to  it  a  monograph  as  thick  as  a  book,  which 
would  send  out  suckers  over  the  whole  domain  of 
aesthetics  and  the  history  of  art.  Never  do  I  feel 
so  painfully  the  inadequacy  of  a  short  essay  as  when 
I  proceed  to  handle  a  subject  so  rich  in  connec- 
tions. It  is  impossible  to  exhaust  it  in  this  form, 
and  it  is  painful  to  leave  it  as  a  fragment.  One 
appears  limited,  whereas  one  is  only  restricted.  We 
must  satisfy  ourselves  with  indications  which  will 
easily  be  looked  upon  as  superficial,  though  they 
are  merely  terse.  What  is  thought  out  as  a  proof 
takes  the  form  of  mere  assertion,  and  in  cases 
where  we  should  like  to  convince,  we  must  think 

294 


Resurrection — Bartholome' 

ourselves  successful,  when  we  have  incited  the  reader 
to  kindly  co-operation — which,  however,  goes  for  the 
most  part  its  own  way. 

This  pious  ejaculation  will  make  it  easier  for  me 
to  accommodate  myself  to  the  conditions  which 
have  been  imposed  on  the  short  essay. 

Works   of  sculpture   in    public    places,  which  are 
neither   monuments   nor   ornamental   buildings,  viz., 
such   as   are   not   intended   to   call   to  mind  special 
events  or  particular  individuals,  are  something  novel 
in  the  development  of  high  art.    Antiquity  knew  only 
monumental    creations    which    had    their   origin   in 
patriotic  sentiments.    We  have  to  bear  in  mind  that 
religion  in  ancient  communities   constituted  a   part 
of  patriotism,  for  there   were   no   gods  for  mankind 
in  general,  but  only  gods  for  a  particular  people  or 
a   particular    state.      When    Socrates   had   to   drain 
the   cup   of    hemlock,   it    was   not   because   he   had 
sinned  against  Olympus,  but  because  he  had  given 
offence   to    Athens    in    the    person   of  her    tutelary 
divinities.     The  Battle  of  the  Giants  and  the  Frieze 
of  the  Parthenon,  the  Pallas  Athene  of  the  Acropolis 
and   the   Olympian  Zeus,  were   felt,   by  those   who 
gazed    on    them    and    for    whom    they    had    been 
wrought,  as   images  from   the   past  and   present   of 
their  race.     Even  the  "  Laocoon  "  and  the  "  Farnese 
Bull "  were  so  regarded :  a  distinction  between  the 
legends   of  their   race   and   accredited   history,  nay, 
between  theology  and  politics,  did  not  exist  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  multitude  at  large,  or  even  in 

295 


On  Art  and  Artists 

that  of  the  select  few.  The  god  made  of  ivory  and 
gold  was  the  public  worship  of  a  living  being  who 
was  invested  with  high  rank  in  the  commonwealth, 
and  the  Olympian  victor  to  whom  a  statue  was 
erected  entered  into  mythology  as  a  comrade  of 
Hercules,  Theseus,  and  Perseus. 

Religious  art  4was  the  only  public  art  known  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  If  material  political  interests  swayed 
the  minds  of  communities  in  Pagan  times,  when 
the  nations  became  Christian  the  supersensual,  i.e., 
the  salvation  of  the  soul,  became  the  great  concern 
of  the  individual  as  of  the  community.  Patriotism 
disappeared  from  the  domain  of  emotion  ;  what  took 
its  place — the  pride  of  town,  or  class,  or  guild — was 
merely  delight  in  material  possession,  or,  if  you  like, 
a  sort  of  vulgar  dignity  without  any  ideal  back- 
ground. Faith  was  their  only  sentiment,  piety  the 
artist's  sole  impulse  from  which  genuine  creations 
could  spring.  It  followed,  therefore,  that  religious 
art — the  only  monumental  art  then  in  existence — 
attached  itself  to  sacred  places,  and  subordinated 
itself  to  them  as  really  mere  accessory  decoration. 
Without  resting  on  architecture,  sculpture  stood  on 
its  own  feet  only  in  the  Stations  of  the  Cross  on 
Calvaries,  but,  even  in  this  case,  it  had  no  object  of 
its  own,  but  served  a  definite  purpose  of  worship. 
The  beginnings  of  a  public  art  which  grew  out  of 
an  abstract  thought  of  the  community — one  not  of 
a  religious  but  of  a  temporal,  of  civic  nature — are 
scanty  and  dim.  As  forerunners  of  such  an  art  we 

296 


Resurrection-  -Bartholome' 

can  claim  the  Roland  Pillars  of  the  Free  Towns — the 
symbol  of  their  civil  and  criminal  jurisdiction — with 
their  indistinct,  historical  background  of  dim  memories 
of  Charlemagne  as  the  legal  source  of  municipal 
liberties,  and  perhaps  also  the  Byzantine  Lion  of 
Brunswick. 

The  Renaissance  was  the  first  to  create  a  monu- 
mental art  that  was  to  serve  no  practical,  religious, 
or  dynastic  purpose,  but  one  purely  aesthetic,  from 
which  people  looked  for  no  strengthening  of  ecclesi- 
astical views,  no  increase  of  authority  and,  through 
that,  of  power  in  a  prince  or  government,  but  looked, 
in  fact,  only  for  delight  in  beauty.     Renaissance  art, 
I  admit,  rich  and  free  as  its  development  was,  also 
remained  thoroughly  under  the  influence  of  mediaeval 
traditions,  and  knew  no  other  range  of  themes  than 
those  derived  from  the  Bible  and  Classic  mythology 
Even  worldlings  among   the   artists,  who   had   out- 
grown religious  ideas,  drew  at  least  their  stories  from 
the  New  and,  even   more  commonly,  from  the  Old 
Testament,   or   from   pagan   mythology,   which   was 
familiar  only  to  the  educated,  and  to  the  multitude 
at   large   was   meaningless,   and   devoid   of  life.     A 
scholastic     pedantry    hung    about     such    works    as 
Benvenuto   Cellini's   "  Perseus,"   for   instance,   which 
prevented  the  masses  from  appreciating  them  fully. 
It   was   not,   however,   done   from   haughty   disdain, 
for    monumental    art  —  the    art   of  the  streets   and 
squares  —  appeals     indeed    to     the     masses.      The 
modelling,    on    the    one    hand,    of  what    is    purely 

297 


On  Art  and  Artists 

human,   which  appeals   to   feelings   in  every  human 
heart,  and   is,  therefore,  understood  by  every  man ; 
on   the   other   hand,   of  a   subject,   well-defined   in 
time    and    place,   which    must    be   familiar,   at    any 
rate,  to  contemporaries   and    residents :    this   degree 
sculpture   attained   only   gradually   and    late.      The 
Goose-man  of  Nuremberg  and  the  Brussels  Mannikin 
are  instances  of  local   Realism  ;   Tadda's  "  Justice " 
at  Florence  and  Michael   Angelo's   "Pieta" —  these 
in  spite  of  their  religious  relations  are   examples  of 
universal  human  Idealism.      It  is  characteristic  of  the 
timidity  of  sculpture,  even  in  its  proud  epoch  of  the 
Renaissance,  that  it  dared  not  cast  itself  adrift  from 
presenting  what  was  of  immediate  utility.    It  thought 
it  needed  an  excuse  for  stepping  out  into  the  market- 
place before   all   the   people.     It   found   it  fairly  in 
supplying  towns  with  water.     It   created    fountains. 
These  are  the  first  and,  for  a  long  time,  the  only 
monumental  works  which  were  suggested  neither  by 
religion   nor    by   loyalty   to    some   dynasty ;    which 
aim    neither    at    immortalising    the    memory   of    a 
particular    event,   nor    at    refreshing   the    schoolboy 
knowledge    of    the    more    liberally    educated,    but 
embody,  without  any  pre-possession,  a  purely  artistic 
conception    of    form    fulfilled    and    animated    with 
subjective  emotion.     The  stages  of  development  of 
the  monumental  fountains,  which  pretend  to  be  mere 
sports  of  untrammelled    fancy  on   the   artist's   past, 
extend   to   the   present  day,  in  the  latest  phase,  in 
which  the  fountain  is  not  really  intended  to  distribute 

298 


Resurrection—  Bartholomg 

water,  like  Sluter's  "  Fount  of  Moses "  at  Dijon,  or 
Jean  Goujon's  "Fontaine  des  Innocents"  in  Paris, 
but  uses  the  water  only  as  a  decorative  element, 
as  Donner's  fountain  in  the  market-place  of  Vienna, 
or  Reinhold  Begas's  Neptune  fountain  in  the  Berlin 
Schlossplatz. 

We  must  come  down  to  the  last  century  to  find 
at  last  a  monumental  art  of  universal  feelings  or 
thoughts,  still,  for  the  most  part,  modestly  cringing 
under  the  protection  of  architecture,  as  groups  on 
pediments  of  palaces,  theatres,  and  exhibition-build- 
ings, and  taking  possession  of  the  public  square  in 
full  independence  only  in  the  last  decades.  Historical 
works,  even  of  an  universal,  impersonal  sort,  such 
as  the  numerous  war-memorials  in  Germany  and 
France,  the  risorgimento  -  monuments  of  Italy,  the 
patriotic  battle-memories  in  Switzerland  —  do  not 
come  under  consideration  here,  but  only  abstract 
works  such  as  Bartholdi's  "  Freedom  enlightening 
the  World,"  at  New  York,  or  Dalou's  "  Republic  as 
the  Protector  of  Labour  and  Culture,"  in  the  Place 
de  la  Nation,  at  Paris. 

Even  these  works  still  continue  to  show  a  birth- 
mark, which  betrays  their  origin  from  the  sculpture 
of  purpose,  for  Bartholdi's  gigantic  statue  is  a  light- 
house, and  Dalou's  "Triumph  of  the  Republic" 
belongs  to  the  fountain  series. 

On  the  other  hand,  Bartholomews  "Memorial  to 
the  Dead "  is  as  free  from  every  idea  of  common- 
place utility  as  any  mouldings  for  the  rooms  of  a 

299 


On  Art  and  Artists 

house.      It   originated   in   the   artist's   emotion,   and 
had,   at    its   birth,   no   other    purpose   than   that  of 
relieving  its  creator  by  the  gratification  of  an  impulse. 
What  was  to  become  of  the  work  after  it  was  finished 
is  a  question  Bartholom6  probably  never  asked  him- 
self at   all.      Perhaps   he    resigned    himself    to   the 
thought  that  it  would  pass  a  pensioner's  existence 
in  some  museum  or  other.     In  any  case,  carelessness 
as  to  what  use  would  b2  made  of  it  left  him  entire 
freedom  as  to  the  form  it  should  take.     And  now 
he  had  the  unexpected  happiness  of  the  work  being 
purchased  by  the  city  of  Paris,  and  placed  in   Pere 
Lachaise.     This   has  been  the  first  instance,  as  far 
as    I    know,   of    a    purely    subjective,    monumental 
work  capturing  a  public  position  without  this  being 
justified   by   a   practical   service  to  the  community, 
without  embellishing  a  building,  without  satisfying 
any    religious    need    or    patriotic    feeling,    without 
immortalising    any   historical   reminiscence,   without 
glorifying   any   event   or   individual,   but   basing  its 
claim  to  the  grateful  attention  of  the  people  at  large 
only  on  the  grounds  that  it  attempts  to  embody  in 
beauty  an  elemental  emotion  alive  in  the  masses,  that 
is  to  say,  a  real,  common  interest  of  moral  order.    The 
work  may  become  the  starting-point  of  a  new  monu- 
mental art,  which  will  set  itself  the  hitherto  unknown 
task  of  presenting,  with  the  authority  of  great  sculp- 
ture, moods  and  views  of  the  world,  viz.,  the  spiritual 
conditions  common  to  a  people,  of  interpreting  them 
to  that  people,  and  of  fixing  them  for  history. 

300 


Resurrection—  Bartholom^ 

With  all  its  novelty,  Bartholome's  work  is,  not- 
withstanding, not  without  organic  connection  with 
the  historical  development  of  art.  There  is  no 
virgin-birth  in  art.  Every  work  has  a  pedigree. 
Bartholome's  art  is  allied  to  the  Campo  Santo  art 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  from  which  it  borrows  thoughts 
of  consolation  and  promise.  It  nevertheless  exhibits 
a  daring  progress  when  it  has  emancipated  itself 
from  the  architecture  of  gateways,  outer  walls, 
chapels,  etc.,  and  forced  its  way  in  independent 
form,  complete  in  itself. 

The  street  of  tombs  opens  at  the  main  entrance  of 
Pere  Lachaise,  and  leads  to  a  gently  rising  hill,  the 
declivity  of  which  Bartholome's  masterpiece  occupies. 
It  displays  the  irregular,  decorated  side  of  a  two- 
storied  stone  building  of  ancient  Egyptian  archi- 
tecture of  the  simplest  lines.  A  high  door  opens 
in  the  middle  of  the  upper  story,  into  the  shadowy 
depth  of  which  a  naked  man  has  entered.  Him 
follows  hesitatingly,  with  her  outstretched  right  hand 
grasping  his  shoulder  and  seeking  support,  a  young 
woman,  the  lines  of  whose  profile,  from  her  mouth 
distorted  with  fear  down  to  the  soles  of  her  feet 
that  detach  themselves  reluctantly  from  the  ground, 
express  a  horror  in  presence  of  the  unknown. 

Towards  this  Gate  of  Death  move,  on  the  right 
and  left,  groups,  each  of  seven  persons,  whom  the 
artist  has  striven  honestly,  yet  without  real  success, 
to  fashion  in  various  shapes.  At  the  first  hurried 
glance,  the  two  processions  appear  to  be  variously 

301 


On  Art  and  Artists 

moved  ;  but  on  looking  more  closely  into  them,  we 
recognise  an  uniformity  which  proves  a  striking 
poverty  of  imagination.  On  the  left,  hard  by  the 
Gate  of  Fate,  a  young  woman  is  sitting  on  a  stone- 
bench  without  support,  with  her  countenance  con- 
cealed by  her  hands.  She  cannot  make  up  her  mind 
to  rise  from  where  she  is  resting,  in  order  to  take  the 
last  step.  A  second  woman  is  visible  in  a  similar 
irresolute  attitude,  in  weak  relief  on  the  wall.  Cower- 
ing behind  the  two,  kneeling  quite  low,  so  that  the 
thighs  lie  in  parallel  lines  over  the  legs,  a  naked  man 
seems  to  be  whispering  words  of  encouragement  into 
the  ear  of  the  seated  woman.  Then  follows  a  woman 
sunk  on  her  knees  as  if  crushed,  who  hides  her  face 
like  the  first  with  a  somewhat  different  movement, 
and  behind  her  a  man  standing,  but  bending  down 
to  her,  and  addressing  words  of  consolation.  Last 
of  all,  another  woman  sitting  down,  whose  dishevelled 
hair  is  streaming  over  her  countenance,  and,  behind 
her,  a  man  standing  upright,  likewise  as  a  consoler. 
Thus  is  repeated  on  this  side  the  theme  of  the 
despairing  woman  and  the  calm,  comforting  man. 
On  the  right  side  the  invention  is  somewhat  richer. 
Close  to  the  door  stands  an  old  man — decidedly 
the  most  expressive  figure  in  the  whole  com- 
position— clinging  tightly  to  the  door  -  posts  ;  and 
with  his  head  and  the  upper  portion  of  his  body 
bent  forward,  he  tries  to  get  a  terrified  glance  at  the 
awful  mystery,  ere  he  pulls  himself  together  for  enter- 
ing. To  his  group  belongs  a  woman  stretched  on 

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Resurrection— Bartholom£ 

the  ground  with  her  face  pressed  in  her  hands 
before  her ;  another  folding  her  hands  in  prayer, 
and  a  half-grown  girl  shrugging  her  lean  shoulders 
in  terror.  There  follows  a  second  group  of  three 
figures — a  woman  with  dishevelled  hair,  bowed  low 
to  the  ground  ;  a  crouching  man  supporting  her  and 
preventing  the  feeble  figure  from  sinking  down  com- 
pletely ;  and  a  young  woman  who  kneels  on  one 
leg,  turns  her  back  to  Death's  portal,  and  glances 
back  on  life  as  though  she  still  hoped  for  deliverance, 

The  lower  story  shows,  through  the  front-wall, 
which  is  removed  to  its  full  extent,  the  interior  of 
the  vault  into  which  the  upper  Gate  of  Death  seems 
to  lead  down.  On  a  mattress-like  couch  rest,  side  by 
side,  the  naked  bodies  of  a  man  and  his  young 
spouse ;  across  their  bodies  is  laid  their  little  one  year 
old  child  ;  in  the  background  is  visible  in  low  relief 
on  the  wall  a  winged  angel  with  outstretched  arms, 
who  looks  down  lovingly  on  the  three  quiet  sleepers. 
With  a  naivite  which  does  not  rise  above  the  puerile 
method  of  the  quattrocentisti,  of  making  their  figures 
express  themselves  by  means  of  legends  issuing  from 
their  mouths,  Bartholome  writes  on  this  wall  beneath 
the  angel  the  sense  of  his  allegory :  "  They  that 
dwell  in  the  land  of  the  shadow  of  death,  upon 
them  hath  the  light  shined." 

Above  all,  the  artist  deserves  the  respect  that  is 
due  to  long  and  earnest  effort.  We  have  here 
before  us  a  work  of  ten  years'  labour,  executed  with 
composure,  inspiration,  and  conscientiousness.  He 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

who  can  do  that,  of  him  one  may  say,  without  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  irony :  "  With  his  talent, 
however  applied,  the  man  is  certainly  a  character." 
Many  details  of  the  monument,  nevertheless,  prove 
that  Bartholome  is  not  only  a  character,  but  also  a 
man  of  talent  The  husband  and  wife  turn  their 
quiet  faces  to  each  other  in  the  rest  that  is  in  the 
grave,  and  lay  their  hands  one  upon  the  other ;  and 
this  movement  is  so  tender  and  sincere  that  it  makes 
a  deep  impression.  It  really  expresses  in  sculpture 
the  love  that  endures  beyond  the  grave.  It  is  the 
solitary  true  emotion  in  the  whole  work ;  for  he 
whose  eyes  grow  moist  at  the  sight  of  the  dead 
child  with  the  sweet  little  baby  limbs,  will  say  to 
himself  that  his  emotion  is  not  of  an  aesthetic  nature, 
is  not  evoked  by  the  means  of  art,  but  is  the  purely 
physical  reaction  of  a  human  heart  from  a  cruelly 
painful  impression,  in  which  no  artistic  element  or 
inspiration  is  mingled.  The  woman  who  enters 
Death's  portal  a  prey  to  horror  exhibits  graceful 
lines,  and  the  old  greybeard  who  timidly  peers  into 
it  is  cleverly  conceived  and  accurately  represented. 
Beside  these  excellent  details,  many  middling  and 
absolute  weak  ones  disturb  us.  The  dead  husband 
in  the  grave  has  an  Aztec  face  of  repulsive  ugliness, 
which  is  not  called  for  by  any  artistic  considera- 
tions. The  attitudes  of  many  figures,  especially  those 
squatting  or  cowering,  are  in  bad  taste.  A  primary 
personage — the  man  who  has  stepped  into  the  Gate 
of  Death — stalks  bending  forward  with  head  bowed 

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Resurrection— Bartholom£ 

down  and  the  muscles  of  his  back  contracted,  like 
one  who  is  hauling  with  all  his  might.  It  is  a 
matter  of  surprise  that  the  tow-rope  with  which  the 
vessel  is  dragged  is  not  to  be  seen.  I  cannot  prove 
it,  but  I  am  convinced  that  Bartholome  has  formed 
this  man,  not  after  a  model,  but  from  what  he 
recollected  of  a  hauler  by  Constantin  Meunier.  I 
have  already  called  attention  to  the  monotony  of 
the  group  motifs.  The  whole  conception  of  the 
composition,  at  any  rate  of  the  upper  story,  is  an 
echo  of  Canova's  monument  to  Maria  Christina 
at  Vienna,  with  the  further  development  that 
Bartholome'  shows  the  subterrestrial  and  super- 
natural continuation  of  the  theme  which  Canova 
carries  only  as  far  as  the  entrance  to  the  realm  of 
shades,  leaving  what  follows  to  the  pious  belief  of 
the  spectator.  The  weightiest  objection  which  must 
be  made  to  the  work  as  a  whole  is  its  offensive 
lack  of  repose.  All  the  individual  details  are,  with 
few  happy  exceptions,  realistic,  whilst  the  effect  of 
the  whole  composition  moves  in  extreme  unreality. 
How  has  Bartholomews  most  original  artistic  instinct 
not  preserved  him  from  trying  to  present  a  wholly 
ideal  dogma  with  the  most  vulgar,  petty  realism  ? 
Simple  mediaeval  sculptors  might  work  thus.  In  our 
contemporaries  we  do  not  believe  in  simplicity,  and 
therefore  the  discord  between  idea  and  form  has  a 
jarring  effect. 

The  most  ideal  dogma  that  Bartholome'  preaches 
is,   however,   that    of  the    immortality   of   the    soul 

305  U 


On  Art  and  Artists 

and  the  resurrection  of  the  body  ;  for  his  monument 
can  mean  only  that,  if  it  means  anything  at  all. 
It  is  conceived  as  a  consolation  to  the  sorrow-laden 
who  form  the  last  escort  to  a  dear  one  that  is  dead, 
or  are  making  a  pilgrimage  to  the  grave  of  one  they 
loved.  And  what  consolation  has  he  to  offer  them  ? 
See,  he  says,  in  the  figures  on  the  upper  story, 
the  sorrow  with  which  men  approach  the  gates  of 
shadow-land.  Why  this  faint  -  heartedness  ?  Why 
this  timorous  shrinking  from  the  terrors  of  death? 
Death  has  no  terrors.  It  is  entering  into  peace  and 
the  fulfilment  of  a  high  promise.  And  he  shows, 
in  the  lower  story,  the  gentle,  blessed  rest  the  dead 
enjoy  who  there  slumber  until  their  resurrection, 
watched  by  their  guardian  angel,  who  awakes  them 
at  the  appointed  hour,  and  convey  their  immortal 
souls  to  their  divine  destination. 

That  is  the  cosmic  view  held  by  an  artist  on  the 
threshold  of  the  twentieth  century.  Holbein  and 
his  predecessors  in  painting  the  Dance  of  Death 
were  men  who  believed  in  Christianity,  but  the 
only  consolation  that  they  offered  mortals  was  this : 
Don't  bewail  your  mortal  lot,  you  share  it  with  Pope 
and  Emperor.  The  path  from  the  Rationalism 
of  this  exhortation  to  the  mysticism  of  Bartholomews 
dogma  is  called  by  the  decadents  Progress. 

The  decadents  are  consistent  when  they  call 
Bartholome  a  modern,  one  of  the  most  modern, 
and  hail  his  work  as  the  art  of  the  future.  It  is 
logically  on  a  line  with  the  "  progress "  and 

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Resurrection— Bartholom£ 

"  modernism  "  of  a  Huysmans,  Maeterlinck,  Bourget, 
and  other  New  Catholics.  But  what  is  to  be  said 
about  the  city  of  Paris  having  this  unctuous  work 
erected  in  Pere  Lachaise?  Had  the  Moscow  Duma 
done  it,  everybody  would  have  found  it  natural. 
But  the  Paris  Municipal  Council !  This  society  of 
boasting  freethinkers  which  has  banished  the  Cross 
from  the  schools  and  churchyards,  hounded  the 
Sisters  of  Mercy  from  the  hospitals,  has  the  dogma 
of  the  Resurrection  preached  officially ! 

That  is  the  highly  interesting  ethical  side  of  this 
work.  It  reveals  monumentally  the  confusion  in  the 
donkey-heads  of  the  self-styled  freethinkers.  That 
they  should  decree  the  honour  of  a  public  site  to  a 
composition  of  a  dogmatically  religious  character  is 
proof  of  crass  ignorance  of  their  own  standpoint, 
or  else  of  their  hypocrisy.  I  prefer  to  assume  it 
to  be  their  ignorance. 


307 


XV 


JEAN   CARRIES 


THE  little  palace,  the  charming  edifice  which  was 
already  attractive  as  the  abode  of  the  Dutuit 
collection,  has  received  a  new  value  and  conserra- 
tion.  A  room  has  been  opened  in  it,  in  which  a 
great  artist  reveals  himself,  whose  acquaintance, 
though  not  indeed  quite  exhaustively,  but  neverthe- 
less very  profoundly  and  familiarly,  can  be  made  only 
here  in  the  wide  world..  This  artist  is  Jean  Carries,^ 
who  died  in  1894,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-nine, 
after  a  marvellously  planned  life.  To  this  pattern 
life,  as  expressive  as  any  whose  story  Vasari  has 
told,  belonged  a  patron  who  kept  what  is  vulgar 
away  from  him,  who  saved  him  from  care  and 
anxiety,  who  made  his  mind  easy  as  to  his  influence 
on  contemporaries  and  posterity,  and,  to  a  certain 
extent,  symbolically  personified  his  fame  for  him. 
This  useful  part  was  played  by  a  certain  Herr 
Hoentschel,  who  acquired  most  of  Carries's  works. 
He  has  now  presented  them  to  the  City  of  Paris, 
and,  by  so  doing,  rendered  the  opening  of  the 

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Jean  Carries 

Carries  Museum  possible.  In  return  his  name  has 
been  engraved  in  letters  of  gold  on  the  marble  slab 
which  declares  the  purpose  to  which  the  room  has 
been  assigned,  beside  that  of  his  trusted  artist — no 
mean  satisfaction  to  a  high-aiming  ambition. 

Carries  was  the  son  of  a  poor  artisan  of  Lyons. 
He  seemed  destined,  as  he  thought,  to  follow  his 
father's  avocation  ;  but  the  fairies  had  conferred 
gifts  on  the  proletarian's  child  in  his  cradle  :  sense 
of  beauty  and  power  of  design.  He  was  for  a  short 
time  apprenticed  to  an  artisan ;  then  he  taught 
himself  to  be  an  artist.  He  pursued  no  beaten 
tracks,  and  could  follow  no  guides.  He  was  left 
to  his  own  sense  of  locality  for  finding  out  a  path, 
and  he  made  wide  detours,  but,  nevertheless,  raised 
himself  safely  to  the  highest  peaks.  Phenomena 
delighted  him  as  form  and  colour.  His  pleasurable 
sensations  sufficed  to  impel  him  to  utterance  in 
sculpture  and  painting ;  he  satisfied  his  delight  in 
form  by  modelling  in  clay,  his  delight  in  colour  by 
enamelling. 

For  nearly  two  decades  he  sought,  strove,  and 
created  in  solemn  loneliness.  Only  the  patron  whom 
he  luckily  found  at  the  right  time  glanced  over  his 
shoulders  when  at  work  with  bated  breath.  His 
reverential  admiration  expressed  itself  in  a  convinc- 
ing manner  by  the  helpful  gesture  of  the  open  hand. 
Some  intimate  comrades  were  allowed  to  witness  the 
lofty  drama  of  an  exquisite  development.  His  studio, 
however,  was  far  removed  from  the  noise  of  the 

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On  Art  and  Artists 

market.  The  heat  of  praise  and  the  icy  breath  of 
blame  brought  no  disturbance  into  the  even  climate 
in  which  his  talent  was  powerfully  developing.  Quiet 
and  collected,  he  worked  on  until  he  saw  his  inner 
vision  realised  before  him.  Then  he  said  :  "  It  is 
good "  ;  and  allowed  a  great  Sabbath  to  follow  the 
hard  days  of  creation.  Absolutely  unknown  to 
wider  circles,  in  1892  he  stepped  before  the  public 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Champs  de  Mars  with  a 
rich  exhibition.  An  hour  after  the  doors  of  the 
"  Salon  "  were  open,  he  was  famous.  In  the  history 
of  modern  art,  never  before  had  such  an  impressive 
revelation  been  observed.  There  was  no  hesitation, 
no  vacillation.  Artists,  critics,  connoisseurs  made 
pilgrimage,  as  if  guided  by  the  shepherds'  star  in 
the  bodeful  procession  of  the  three  kings  of  the 
East  to  Carries'  glass  cases  and  pedestals,  bent  their 
knees,  and  brought  incense  and  myrrh.  His  country-  | 
men  shouted  for  joy  :  "  France  has  one  great  painter 
more."  Thoughtful  persons  looked  at  one  another 
and  said  softly :  "  The  world  is  by  one  beauty  richer." 
All  asked  :  "  Who  is  the  man  ?  "  for  they  insisted, 
in  their  amazement,  that  nobody  knew  him.  And 
then  they  found  out  that  Jean  Carries  was  a 
finished  artist,  a  man  of  thirty-seven,  who  lived  in 
the  provinces,  and  had,  up  to  that  time,  sought 
nothing  but  the  satisfaction  of  himself.  He  had 
not  wasted  the  tiniest  little  spark  of  his  Promethean 
strength  in  the  vulgar  melodrama  of  fighting  for 
success.  His  tragedies  were  the  great  struggle  with 


Jean  Carries 

the  resistance  of  material,  and  doubt  of  himself,  and 
they  had  been  played  in  secret  in  his  soul.  And 
now  was  pressed  upon  him  that  for  which  candidates 
strive  convulsively,  and  how  often  fruitlessly !  The 
Champs  de  Mars  Society  elected  him  with  acclama- 
tion to  full  membership,  and  dispensed  him  from  the 
probationary  period  as  associate.  The  State  asked 
for  specimens  to  serve  as  models  for  its  museums, 
and  tied  the  red  ribbon  to  the  buttonhole  of  his 
blouse.  What  was  purchasable  was  bought  up  by  the 
ladies  of  Arc  de  Triomphe  quarter  during  the  first 
days  of  the  "  Salon."  A  rich  American  lady,  Mrs 
Winnareta  Singer,  commissioned  him  to  carry  out 
the  model  of  his  fantastic  "  door."  The  artists  feted 
him  by  a  banquet  in  his  honour — a  homage  which 
at  that  time  was  not  lavished  as  was  the  case  after- 
wards. Mdlle.  Luise  Breslau  painted  his  portrait, 
which  is  now  exhibited  in  his  room  in  the  midst  of 
his  works,  and  showed  his  admirers  a  still  youngish 
man  of  noble  beauty,  with  a  Lucius  Verus  head, 
the  Caesarean  nobility  of  which  was  not  in  the  least 
injured  by  a  careless  slouched  hat.  I  do  not  know 
whether  Mdlle.  Breslau  has  flattered  her  model  or 
has  been  honest,  for  I  never  saw  Carries  himself;  but 
in  the  picture  he  appears,  as  one  would  like  to  fancy 
him,  every  inch  a  gentleman,  on  whom  his  care- 
less working-dress  has  the  effect  of  a  disguise  which 
does  not  for  a  second  deceive  as  to  the  rank  of 
the  wearer.  A  delicate,  slender  figure;  wonderfully 
active,  inspired  hands ;  deep,  searching  eyes  that 

3" 


On  Art  and  Artists 

seem  to  sight  and  fix  a  dream-picture  hovering  away  ; 
soft,  narrow  cheeks,  on  which  uneasy  shadows  play, 
under  the  short  beard ;  a  thoughtful,  white  forehead 
over  which  an  abundance  of  light  brown  curls  falls. 
How  many  women  may  have  indulged  in  dreams 
before  this  likeness,  for  it  fascinates  even  men  ! 

The  homage  received  had  no  intoxicating  effect 
on  him ;  the  activity  of  the  Press  concerning  him 
did  not  infect  him  with  the  smallest  beginnings 
of  conceit.  He  withdrew  from  the  curiosity  of  the 
world  by  quietly  returning  to  his  provincial  nest, 
where,  day  and  night,  he  stoked  his  flaming  furnace, 
and  mixed  his  acids  and  metallic  salts ;  suffered 
under  frequent  disappointments,  and  enjoyed  rare 
delights  in  the  success  of  a  firing  or  a  coloured 
enamel.  In  the  ensuing  year  one  looked  in  vain 
for  him  in  the  "  Salon,"  and  not  quite  two  years 
after  his  unparalleled  triumph  that  came  like  a 
bomb,  men  learnt  that  he  had  died. 

His  life  had  ended  artistically.  Carries  dis- 
appeared ere  his  locks  grew  scanty  or  grey.  Beauti- 
fully and  noiselessly,  like  another  Euphorion,  he 
soared  away  from  the  admiration  of  his  contempo- 
raries in  the  full  lustre  of  his  fame ;  and  his  works, 
through  his  early  death,  experienced  the  enhanced 
value  of  the  Sibylline  books.  We  may  call  him 
happy,  for  in  this  room  we  feel  that  he  had 
given  his  best  when  he  died.  With  a  longer  life 
he  might  have  gone  astray,  for  there  is  no  lack 
of  short  openings  to  false  paths.  Very  likely  he 

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Jean  Carries 

would  have  repeated  himself  many  times,  and  that 
would  have  detracted  from  the  dainty  charm  of 
rarity  which,  besides  their  noble  beauty,  is  peculiar 
to  his  works. 

He  unites  in  himself  two  different  and  equally 
perfect  artists :  the  sculptor  and  the  art  -  potter. 
Each  tilled  a  tiny  field ;  but  with  what  intensity ! 
And  what  harvests  they  conjured  out  of  it !  As 
sculptor,  curiously  enough,  the  whole  human  figure 
in  its  Olympian  nudity  failed  to  interest  him.  He 
has  not  on  a  single  occasion  sought  to  represent 
the  body's  Paradisaic  beauty.  He  confines  himself, 
apparently  on  principle,  to  head  and  hands ;  but 
these  are  surpassed  by  nothing,  and  equalled  only  by 
little,  that  all  the  centuries  since  the  Renaissance 
have  produced.  I  pass  respectfully,  yet  without 
deeper  feeling,  by  his  busts  of  Velasquez  and  Franz 
Hals.  They  are  merely  exercises  of  his  hand,  perhaps 
only  pastimes.  They  seem  theatrical  by  reason  of  the 
accentuation  of  the  costume.  In  their  countenances 
the  absence  of  the  model  is  too  evident.  But  beside 
them  the  busts  of  Gustave  Courbet,  of  Jules  Breton, 
especially  of  Carries  himself,  operate  with  unequalled 
authority.  They  live  before  us  ;  they  think,  and  they 
reveal  themselves.  In  looking  at  them  we  involuntarily 
call  to  mind  the  old  stories  of  the  earthen  statues 
which  a  magician  filled  with  the  breath  of  life  in 
order  that  they  might  serve  him. 

The  same  impression,  only  intensified  and  deepened, 
is  felt  before  the  busts  of  the  "  Young  Girl  with  the 

313 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Drooping  Head,"  the  "  Dutch  Wife,"  and  the  "  Dutch 
Maiden."  This  young  Dutch  girl  is  particularly 
adorable.  I  do  not  consider  I  am  exaggerating 
when  I  say  she  ranks  as  a  sister,  though  in  a 
different  technique,  with  the  "  Mona  Lisa."  The 
maiden's  innocent  eyes,  which  have  no  presenti- 
ment of  the  passionate  secrets  of  Gioconda ;  the 
graceful,  reposeful  countenance,  that  seems  wonder- 
ing blissfully  over  her  own  blooming  youth  and  the 
loveliness  of  the  world,  charm  us  like  the  miracle 
of  a  spring  day.  Similar  joy  streams  from  his 
sleeping  and  waking  little  children.  The  softness 
of  this  baby  flesh,  the  delicate  texture  of  this 
plump,  warm,  satin  skin,  are  unattainable.  Carries 
discovered  a  new  technique  for  the  life  of  the  outer 
skin,  the  results  of  which,  in  his  hands,  are  amazing. 
He  gives  a  delicate,  perpendicular  creasing  to  the 
membrane  of  the  lips,  and  marks  it  off  from  the  skin 
of  the  face  in  a  discreet  but  firm  line,  so  that  it 
imparts  the  illusion  of  seeing  swelling  lip-red  framed 
in  mother-of-pearl.  The  mouths  of  his  women  are 
weirdly  seductive.  It  would  really  not  surprise  me 
if  semi-fools  and  lunatics  were  to  pounce  upon  these 
ravishing  lips  with  eager  kisses. 

Even  when  Carries  is  not  idealising,  but  is  repro- 
ducing portraits  true  to  nature,  he  imparts  to  them 
an  inwardness  which  seems  unfathomable,  like  that 
of  a  deep  soul.  For  this  let  any  one  only  look 
at  the  "  Bust  of  an  Unknown  Lady "  and  "  Mother 
Callamand" — the  former  a  cold,  proud  patrician, 

3H 


Jean  Carries 

perhaps  the  Clara  Vere  de  Vere,  in  whom  Tennyson 
admires  "that  repose  which  stamps  the  caste  of 
Vere  de  Vere " ;  the  latter  a  splendid  old  nun, 
probably  an  abbess,  a  sturdy,  peasant  woman  who 
is  conscious  of  her  high  rank  in  the  convent,  and 
in  whose  broad  face  goodness  and  severity,  healthy 
power  and  enthusiastic  spirituality,  are  mingled. 
This  gift  of  filling  the  subject  with  inward  life  is  the 
strongest  element  in  Carries'  genius.  In  a  series  of 
works  which  were  exhibited  in  the  Champs  de  Mars 
Salon,  and  are,  unfortunately,  not  to  be  found  in  the 
room  of  the  Little  Palace,  this  cropped  up  over- 
poweringly.  There  were  fabulous  animals,  monsters, 
which  a  luxuriant  imagination  had  invented — toads, 
frogs,  lizards  of  gigantic  size,  in  positions  humanly 
conceived,  the  female  reposing  on  the  breast  of 
the  male,  whose  eyes  are  closing  in  rapture,  and 
delicately  embraced  by  his  paws.  One  might  think 
they  would  have  a  grotesque  effect ;  by  no  means. 
Their  anthropomorphism  brought  them  in  danger 
of  derision ;  but  the  genius  of  Carries  was  here 
directly  revealed.  The  quasi-human,  emotional  life 
manifested  in  their  attitudes  made  them  pathetic. 
The  toads'  legs  were  not  seen;  their  mouths  and 
goggle  eyes  were  not  seen.  People  saw  only  the 
unmistakable  trait  of  love,  and  were  moved  by  this 
exhibition  of  the  primitive  feeling — the  same  in  man 
and  beast — which  holds  the  world  together. 

Perhaps    it    is    in    accordance    with    this    gift    of 
spiritualisation  that  Carries  never  worked  with  marble, 

315 


On  Art  and  Artists 

rarely  with  bronze,  but,  as  a  rule,  and  preferably,  with 
potter's  clay.  Stone  and  metal,  however  painfully 
correctly  they  render,  with  every  stroke  of  the  thumb 
and  impression  of  the  finger,  the  clay  model,  seem 
to  him  too  hard  for  the  inexpressible  tenderness 
which  he  wants  to  express.  Only  one  material 
satisfies  him — the  one  which  possesses  the  softness 
of  flesh  and  of  nerve-plasm.  He  can  knead  only 
clay  so  that  it  retains  his  lightest  vibrations.  There 
is  something  about  his  busts  of  burnt  clay  that 
reminds  me  of  phonographic  cylinders.  There  is 
soul-melody  inscribed  in  them  in  invisible  lines,  and, 
set  in  our  mood,  they  again  begin  to  give  forth 
sounds,  and  to  repeat  the  mood  of  him  who  composed 
them. 

The  ability  with  trembling  fingers  to  coax 
emotions  into  soft  clay  and  to  render  them  plastic 
seems  to  be  something  divine.  It  did  not  satisfy 
Carries.  Anybody  else  would  have  found  the 
limits  of  his  genius  enviably  wide ;  to  him  they 
appeared  narrow,  and  he  tried  to  pass  beyond 
them.  He  wanted  to  create  monumental  pieces 
of  sculpture,  and  he  constructed  his  "  Martyrdom 
of  St  Fidelis"  and  his  astounding  "Gate."  The 
"  Martyrdom  "  is  a  group,  composed  of  the  kneeling 
martyr  in  monastic  habit  and  the  executioner  behind 
him,  raising  his  armed  fist  to  deal  the  murderous 
blow.  In  the  details  the  artist  is  here,  too,  distinctly 
Carries,  i.e.,  the  executioner  is  of  superb  cruelty — a 
fine  specimen  of  the  family  of  brutalised  legionaries 

316 


Jean  Carries 

or  torturers  who,  in  mediaeval  relievi  of  the  Way  of 
the  Cross,  scourge  Christ  at  the  pillar  and  nail  Him 
to  the  Cross.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  master's  art 
is  a  failure ;  the  group  has  no  line.  The  drama 
cannot  be  seen  from  any  side,  that  is,  the  gesture  of 
the  executioner,  with  its  menace  of  death,  and  the 
countenance  of  the  martyr  who  is  awaiting  his  last 
trial,  cannot  be  comprehended  at  once  in  a  single 
glance. 

If  this  group  is  weak,  the  "Gate"  is  a  complete 
failure.  He  imagined  a  gateway  with  a  depressed 
keel-arch  top,  divided  by  an  intervening  pillar  into 
two  gates.  The  pillars  are  covered  with  grotesque 
masks  and  mythical  animals  from  top  to  bottom. 
The  arch  of  the  gate  is  formed  by  a  dragon,  in  the 
gaping  jaws  of  which  stands  a  noble  lady.  The 
separate  masks  and  monsters  scintillate  with  spirit, 
fancy,  and  humour.  In  richness  and  variety  of 
invention,  and  in  depth  of  humour,  I  unhesitatingly 
place  these  heads  far  above  Germain  Pilon's  Pont 
Neuf  masks.  The  contrast,  too,  between  the  fearless 
maiden  standing  in  the  animal's  jaws,  full  of  quiet 
self-confidence,  and  the  hideous  beast,  is  of  pregnant 
symbolism.  The  work  is,  nevertheless,  an  aberra- 
tion, as  a  whole.  The  masks  and  monsters  have 
no  organic  connection  with  the  gate,  either  con- 
structively, or  in  accordance  with  the  meaning. 
They  are  simply  stuck  on.  And  the  gateway  itself 
is  an  insoluble  riddle.  Where  should  it  lead  to? 
To  a  lunatic  asylum,  a  museum  of  caricatures,  or  a 

317 


On  Art  and  Artists 

carnival  ballroom  ?  Or  should  it  mean  "  the  abstract 
door,"  the  door  pure  and  simple,  without  the  purpose 
of  an  entrance  into  a  building?  The  poor,  great 
artist  consecrated  years  of  his  life  to  this  prodigy, 
and  never  saw  that  he  had  wasted  them. 

The  decorator  amused  himself  in  devising  un- 
heard-of enamels.  He  modelled  vessels  of  smooth, 
supple  plant-forms — calabashes,  melons,  cucumbers, 
mamillaria-cactuses,  bulging  or  fallen  in,  smoothly 
swelling,  or  warty  and  shrivelled,  whimsically  dinted 
like  a  thin  copper-plate,  wantonly  hammered,  or 
lumpy  and  swollen.  And  over  these  whimsicalities, 
which  show  an  incredible  mastery  of  the  material, 
he  poured  glazes  which  look  so  fat  and  moist  that 
they  seem  to  flow  still,  viscous  and  languid.  Many 
are  purple,  like  half-curdled  blood ;  others  white  and 
rich,  like  fresh  cream ;  and  others  like  coloured 
fruit  juices ;  but  many  a  time  we  think  we  see  thick 
matter  and  brains  in  frightful  discharges ;  and  on 
some  vases  the  enamel  imitates  the  lichens  which 
overrun  the  bark  of  trees  in  spots,  grooves,  and 
bands.  And  when  Carries  has  done  enough  with 
these  glazes,  which  remind  us  of  opalescent  life-saps, 
he  tries  diversity  in  glazes  of  gold,  silver,  coral,  and 
precious  stones,  which  change  his  stoneware  phials 
into  splendid  vessels  from  a  treasury  of  the  Thousand 
and  One  Nights. 

As  a  sculptor  in  clay  Jean  Carries  stands  as  high 
as  Delia  Robbia ;  in  details — in  forming  lips  and 
cheeks  —  far  higher  than  the  latter ;  and,  as  a 


Jean  Carries 

decorator,  no  one  can  be  compared  with  him,  not 
even  Bernhard  de  Palissy — to  mention  a  name  by 
which  his  rank  may  be  estimated.  Carries  is  not  a 
man  of  to-day,  and  fashion  lies  far  below  the  height 
on  which  he  works.  The  wretched  aesthetic-babbling 
coteries  of  the  period  cannot  get  hold  of  him,  or 
make  use  of  him  for  the  senseless  but  furiously 
bellowed  catchwords  peculiar  to  the  polemics  of 
the  day.  He  is  not  a  modernist,  not  a  classic, 
not  an  impressionist ;  he  is  not  this,  he  is  not  that, 
but,  he  is,  quite  simply,  himself.  He  works  up 
what  he  has  learnt  in  his  own  person ;  he  invents 
his  own,  and  always  gives  himself.  He  creates  from 
his  own  soul,  without  looking  to  right  or  left.  In 
him  there  is  no  school,  no  tendency,  and  no  strain- 
ing, but  only  feeling,  personality,  and  the  service 
of  beauty.  Yet  it  is  through  these  great  artistic 
natures,  which  belong  to  no  time,  that  the  line  of 
development  in  art  proceeds,  and  not  through  the 
pitiful  komuncutt,  whom  Faust  caricatures  artificially 
engender  in  advertisement-retorts. 


319 


XVI 

WORKS  OF  ART  AND  ART 
CRITICISMS 

DURING  the  last  years  the  relation  of  public  opinion 
to  works  of  art  has  been  repeatedly  discussed,  and 
on  each  occasion  with  great  warmth. 

The  discussion,  in  the  main,  is  concerned  with 
two  questions  which  are  independent  even  if  they 
are  connected  with  each  other,  viz. :  Has  the  public 
a  right  to  judge  a  work  of  art,  or  must  it  renounce 
its  own  opinion  and  simply  bow  before  the  verdict 
of  specialists  ?  Have  not  all,  or,  at  any  rate,  many, 
works  of  art  that  have  subsequently  gained  undis- 
puted recognition  by  the  world,  been  strongly 
opposed  and  rashly  rejected  on  their  first  appear- 
ance in  public? 

In  1899  intellectual  Berlin  was  excited  about  a 
pertinent  question.  Professor  Franz  Stuck,  the 
Munich  painter,  had  obtained  a  commission  for  a 
wall-painting  for  the  German  House  of  Parliament. 
When  the  artist  sent  in  his  sketch,  there  came  a 
shriek  of  most  unpleasant  astonishment  from  the 
judging  committee  of  the  Reichstag,  and  a  member, 

320 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

Dr  Lieber,  expressed  in  public  session,  in  very  strong 
language,  his  absolutely  unmixed  feelings  in  respect 
of  the  work. 

The  Munich  friends  of  the  insulted  artist,  to  their 
credit,  made  common  cause  for  him.  They  published 
an  armour-clad  protest,  in  which  they  characterised 
the  members  as  "  laymen  unable  to  judge,"  and 
reproached  them  with  impertinence  because  they 
"thought  they  understood  everything  better  than 
learned  specialists  did." 

I  expressed  my  views  then  in  the  Deutsche  Revue 
of  this  opposition  between  specialists  and  laymen  in 
plastic  art,  and  I  ask  permission  to  repeat  here  in 
brief  the  essential  part  of  my  arguments. 

Who  are  the  experts  ?  From  the  general  drift  of 
the  objection  on  the  part  of  the  Munich  artists  it  was 
to  be  concluded  that  they  must  be  the  practising 
artists,  the  critics,  perhaps  also  the  professors  of 
art-history.  Let  him  who  does  not  belong  to  these 
three  sacrosanct  categories  steal  weeping  away  from 
the  confederation  of  experts.  And  even  among  the 
critics  there  is  probably  a  selection  to  be  made. 
The  critic  who  praises  the  artist  is  to  him  undoubtedly 
an  expert ;  the  critic  who  blames  him  shows  himself 
incontestably  as  a  bourgeois,  and  in  intelligence  stands 
almost  as  low  as  a  common  University  professor  who 
does  not  teach  art-history. 

All  this  is  foolish  talk.  In  matters  of  art, 
if,  indeed,  any  one  can,  only  an  individual — never  a 
category  —  can  lay  claim  to  the  rank  of  expert. 

321  X 


On  Art  and  Artists 

Is,  perhaps,  the  practising  artist  the  expert?  He 
is  not  so  necessarily.  There  are  people  whose  voca- 
tion in  life,  or,  speaking  more  correctly,  whose  usual 
occupation,  is  painting,  but  whose  painting  is  a 
continuous  insult  to  art.  One  may  be  a  professional 
painter,  and  yet  a  pitiful  dauber,  and  commit  such 
impudent  sins  against  good  taste  that  every  non- 
expert must  recognise  this  at  the  first  glance,  and 
be  provoked  at  it.  Or  is  the  critic  the  expert  ?  It 
would  be  a  good  joke  to  assert  that. 

Nearly  every  verdict  on  a  work  or  an  artist  com- 
mitted to  paper  by  a  professional  critic  is  opposed 
by  another  verdict,  also  by  a  professional  critic  which 
says  the  exact  contrary.  Which  of  the  two  critics  is 
an  expert  ?  Which  of  the  two  has  a  right  to  demand 
that  people  should  bow  before  his  verdict,  because 
he  habitually  makes  phrases  about  works  of  art  in 
public?  What  proof  of  capacity  do  the  papers  as 
a  rule  demand  of  the  beaux  esprits  to  whom  they 
entrust  art  criticism  ?  He  who  has  observed  dozens 
of  times  how  ambitious  young  newspaper  -  writers, 
on  their  first  report  of  an  opening  of  an  Exhibition, 
or  after  forming  a  coffee-house  acquaintance  with  an 
artist  thirsting  for  advertisement,  suddenly  discover 
in  their  minds  a  gift  for  art  criticism,  and  have 
subsequently  cultivated  this  with  brazen  self- 
consciousness  ;  he  will  feel  highly  amused  when 
people  try  to  crack  up  art  -  critics  as  experts, 
simply  because  they  exercise  this  function.  Even 
professors  of  the  history  of  art,  even  directors  of 

322 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

museums,  are  not,  by  reason  of  their  office,  experts  in 
the  sense  of  possessing  very  profound  understanding 
of  art.  The  academic  study  of  art-history  lays  the 
chief  stress  on  the  facts  belonging  to  the  history  of 
life  and  morals,  which  need  have  nothing  in  common 
with  the  understanding  of  art.  One  may  make 
in  archives  the  most  beautiful  discoveries  for  the 
biography  of  Leonardo,  and  not  feel  a  single  one 
of  his  pictures.  And  as  regards  superintendents  of 
museums,  it  is  possible  to  relate  the  funniest 
anecdotes  about  their  fallibility,  and  oppose  to  them 
simple  connoisseurs,  also  "  non-experts,"  who  have 
formed  splendid  private  collections. 

The  truth  is  there  are  no  experts  in  questions  of 
art,  as  there  are,  perhaps,  in  questions  of  technique. 
Expert  knowledge  presupposes  the  existence  of 
fixed  rules,  of  a  canon.  There  can  be  no  talk  of 
this  in  the  fine  arts.  The  only  element  of  paint- 
ing that,  at  least  to  a  certain  point — to  the  point 
where  the  individual  conception  and,  with  it,  really 
artistic  interest  first  begins — is  under  objective  rules, 
is  drawing,  both  from  its  figure  as  well  as  its  per- 
spective side.  This  element  can  be  taught,  learnt, 
and  faithfully  measured,  for  nature  furnishes  the 
scales.  On  the  other  hand,  the  colour  element  in 
painting  is  subject  to  absolutely  no  canon,  but  at 
best  to  subjective  feeling,  at  worst  to  a  fashion  of 
the  period.  Every  artificial  colour  is  a  convention  ; 
for,  as  I  have  argued  more  particularly  in  my  studies 
of  Sisley  and  Pissarro,  none  can  truly  reproduce 

323 


On  Art  and  Artists 

the  real  colours  of  natural  phenomena,  and  it  is 
wholly  a  consequence  of  education  and  habit,  when 
the  polychrome  of  oil-painting  or  water-colour  more 
easily  excites  in  us  the  illusion  of  colouristic  truth 
than  the  monochrome  of  the  two-colour  or  of  black 
and  white  art.  One  decade  paints  in  dark,  another 
in  bright  colours.  One  school  likes  powerful,  another 
subdued  harmonies  of  colour.  Prae  -  Raphaelites 
imitate  the  tone  of  old  frescoes  and  faded  Gobelins. 
Puvis  de  Chavannes  took  the  colour  out  of  his 
pictures  by  a  transparent  white-wash,  pale  as  the 
moon.  Besnard,  on  the  contrary,  discharges  fire- 
works, without  caring  in  the  least  if  the  mad 
tumults  of  colour  that  he  loved  are  possible  or 
not  in  nature.  Carriere  envelops  his  figures  in  a 
dense  mist.  Cottet  has,  very  recently,  brought  into 
fashion  the  black  and  dark  shadings  which  go  right 
back  from  Ribot  and  Prudhon  to  Velasquez  and 
Ribera.  Who  is  right?  Who  is  wrong?  Here  every- 
thing is  feeling,  and  consequently  subjectivity.  Of 
drawing,  one  can  in  all  cases  say  (and  by  photo- 
graphy irrefutably  prove),  it  is  correct,  or  it  is 
wrong.  Colour  does  not  admit  of  a  similar  verdict. 
All  that  can  be  said  of  it  is  :  "I  like  it,"  or  "  I  don't 
like  it." 

For  beauty  in  art,  in  the  present  condition  of  the 
perception  theory,  the  physiology  and  psychology 
of  pleasurable  feelings,  there  is  no  other  standard 
than  subjective  feeling.  This  is  dependent  on  the 
greater  or  the  less  sensitiveness  of  the  nervous 

324 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

system,  on  its  perceptivity  of  slight  qualitative  and 
quantitative  differences  in  the  excitation  of  the 
senses,  and,  therefore,  on  an  essentially  congenital 
constitution  of  the  organism.  The  gift  of  receiving 
strong  impressions  from  works  of  art  can  be 
developed  by  practice,  by  the  frequent  and  attentive 
study  of  works  of  art  of  different  kinds ;  but  it 
cannot  be  attained  artificially  by  any  effort  or  any 
amount  of  study. 

What,  then,  mean  the  expressions  expert  and 
layman,  when  applied  to  aesthetic  verdicts?  The 
classes  of  society,  in  which  preponderating  occupa- 
tion with  intellectual  problems,  continued  through 
several  generations,  has  refined  the  nervous  system 
and  rendered  it  more  sensitive,  produce,  as  a  rule, 
individuals  with  a  feeling  for  art.  These  live  in 
large  towns,  in  the  centres  of  art  life,  they  travel, 
and  visit  numerous  collections,  and  thus  their  feeling 
for  art  is  developed  into  a  wide  understanding  of  it, 
that  studies  works  of  art  from  the  historical  stand- 
point. These  are  the  real  experts,  so  far  as  there 
can  be  any  talk  of  such  in  aesthetic  questions.  But 
these  classes  of  society,  these  individuals  are  only  to 
the  very  smallest  extent  painters  or  professional 
critics,  i.e.,  critics  writing  for  the  public.  To  wish 
to  exclude  them,  on  that  account,  from  the  expert 
class  is  ludicrous  presumption  of  certain  persons 
who,  by  their  own  authority,  confer  this  title  on 
themselves.  The  educated  public — the  intellectual 
elite — has  not  the  least  reason  for  allowing  their 

325 


On  Art  and  Artists 

opinion  on  works  of  art  to  be  dictated  to  them  by 
painters  who  may  well  be  daubers  or  crack-brained 
fools,  or  by  critics  who  may  be  ignorant  phrase- 
mongers. 

So  much  for  the  first  question  as  to  the  fitness 
of  the  so-called  layman  for  criticising  works  of  art. 

The  second  question,  as  to  the  changes  in  public 
opinion  about  certain  works  and  their  authors,  is 
considerably  more  complex. 

It  is  not  to  be  gainsaid  that  such  changes 
have  occurred,  but  they  are  much  rarer  than  those 
would  like  to  make  us  believe  who,  from  instances 
of  pretended  later  conversions  of  originally  rebellious 
taste  on  the  part  of  contemporaries,  hope  to  succeed 
in  proving  that  the  ugly  is  beautiful  and  the  beautiful 
is  ugly. 

The  names  which  were  most  often  cited  to  prove 
the  incompetency  of  contemporary  judgment  on 
works  of  art  of  modern  tendency  are  most  un- 
fortunately chosen.  Millet,  Rousseau,  and  Corot 
were  looked  upon  by  their  contemporaries  as 
smearers  and  daubers ;  Manet  was  laughed  to 
scorn,  Bocklin  pronounced  a  fool,  his  friends  advised 
Hans  Thoma  to  change  his  name,  etc.,  etc.  In 
order  not  to  go  to  too  great  length  I  will  now 
leave  Thoma  and  Bocklin  out  of  the  discussion.  But 
the  others!  That  Rousseau  and,  especially,  Corot 
passed  for  smearers  and  daubers  among  their  con- 
temporaries is  simply  not  true ;  on  the  contrary, 
justice  was  at  once  done  to  them  for  their  technique. 

326 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

Even  their  most  unscrupulous  opponents  admitted 
that  they  were  draughtsmen  and  colourists.  What 
they  were  reproached  with  was  only  the  alleged 
intellectual  insignificance  of  their  work.  People 
remained  under  the  influence  of  classical  landscape 
with  ancient  buildings  or  ruins,  and  a  decoration  of 
ideal  figures  such  as  Poussin  brought  into  fashion, 
and  Claude  Lorrain  cultivated.  A  landscape  with- 
out nymphs  or  shepherds  in  Arcadian  dress,  with- 
out temples  or  figures  of  Hermes,  seemed  empty, 
insignificant,  ignoble.  The  majority  had  as  yet  no 
taste  for  the  witchery  of  mood  in  wood  and  field. 
Why,  Corot  himself  was  not  clear  about  what  was 
new  and  determinative  in  his  own  art,  for  in  some 
of  his  grandest  pictures  Dryads  dance,  beneath 
young-leaved  trees  immersed  in  the  mists  of  spring- 
tide, the  most  correct  sham-classic  square  dance.  It 
was  only  in  his  last  period  that  he  renounced  this 
ancient  magic.  Rousseau  had  broken  away  from 
tradition  more  resolutely,  and  was  on  that  account 
less  esteemed  than  Corot  by  contemporaries  whose 
education  had  been  perverted  by  precedent.  But 
the  worst  that  was  said  against  the  two  did  not  go 
beyond  the  assertion  that  they  were  "vulgar." 

The  case  of  Manet  is,  of  course,  different.  People 
have  roughly  disowned  this  painter ;  but  it  is 
absolutely  false  to  talk  about  a  change  in  popular 
opinion  about  him.  Those  who  "  laughed  at "  him 
thirty-five  years  ago,  laugh  at  him  in  precisely  the 
same  way  now.  In  my  study  of  the  Caillebotte 

327 


On  Art  and  Artists 

room  in  the  Luxembourg  Museum  I  have  alluded 
to  the  angry  protest  of  G6r6me  and  Gustave  Moreau 
against  admitting  the  works  of  Manet  and  his  friends 
into  a  State  collection.  If  the  laughers  are  not  so 
numerous,  and  if  their  laughter  is  not  so  ringing  as 
in  the  "  Olympia  "  year,  it  is  simply  because  the  man 
is  absolutely  done  with.  Only  a  few  stragglers  still 
talk  nonsense  about  Manet,  men  who  have  missed 
the  connection  of  "the  last  train,"  and  some  grey- 
beards in  their  dotage — the  barricade  warriors  of 
the  "  Salon " — who  fancy  they  are  still  breathing 
the  gunpowder  smoke  of  1863,  and  will  keep  up  to 
the  day  of  their  death,  which  cannot  be  far  off,  the 
happy,  exultant  mood  of  the  beer-evenings  at  the 
Cafe  de  Madrid.  None  among  the  pillars  of  young 
and  living  art  recognises  Manet  as  his  ancestor. 
People  know  now  that  he  was  a  discovery  of  Zola's. 
The  sharp  turn  in  the  development  of  art  in  the  last 
thirty  years  of  the  last  century  was  inaugurated, 
not  by  him,  but  by  others.  Courbet  introduced 
realism  which  has  nowadays  shrunk  to  nothing. 
Monet  kindled  "  Free  Light,"  and  that  was  a  very 
great  service  which,  unfortunately,  is  also  no  longer 
fully  acknowledged,  for  the  latest  race  of  Parisian 
painters  again  abandons  joyful  brightness  and  goes 
back  to  the  gloomy,  oppressive  tones  of  "  the  'fifties." 
Manet,  however,  found  nothing  and  invented  nothing, 
and  he  owes  the  noise  that  was,  for  a  period,  heard 
about  him  only  to  his  relations  with  a  devoted 
friend,  who  vindicated  his  own  tendency  by  that  of 

328 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

the  painter,  and  said  of  him  all  the  good  which  he 
thought  of  himself. 

The  change  in  taste  from  one  generation  to  another 
is  a  general  law  which  I  proved  in  the  Neue 
Freie  Presse  of  Qth  August  1896,  and  afterwards 
developed  and  established  in  the  Florence  Rivista 
Moderna  (No.  3,  of  1898,  "  Le  alternanze  del  gusto"}. 
I  strongly  believe  in  the  prevalence  of  this  law  ;  but 
if  particular  cases  are  followed  in  detail,  it  is 
recognised  that  many  an  apparent  change  in  the 
appreciation  of  a  work  or  an  artist  rests  on  an 
illusion  of  the  senses. 

To  return  to  the  subject  of  Manet.  An  awful  din 
arose  at  the  first  appearance  of  "  Olympia."  Friends 
and  foes  waged  wild  battle  with  each  other.  Each 
panted  for  the  blood  of  the  other.  Twenty  years 
later  the  picture  that  had  been  so  hotly  contested 
was  hung  in  the  State  Museum,  which  roused  fresh, 
but  considerably  weaker,  opposition.  Finally,  how- 
ever, no  one  any  longer  protested  against  its 
presence  in  the  picture-gallery,  and  now  a  sophist 
might  assert :  "  There,  you  see !  The  picture  which 
was  once  laughed  at  is,  thirty  years  afterwards, 
acknowledged  as  a  classical  work  of  art." 

Gently  !  That  is  by  no  means  proved.  The  fight 
has  ceased  only  because  it  has  become  objectless. 
Who  nowadays  waxes  warm  against  Manet?  The 
man,  you  know,  is  dead,  not  only  as  a  human 
being,  but  also  as  an  artist.  He  no  longer  troubles 
any  one.  He  no  longer  exercises  any  bad  influence. 

329 


On  Art  and  Artists 

He  no  longer  even  poisons  popular  taste,  for  it  is 
sufficient  to  observe  the  visitors  to  the  Luxembourg, 
to  see  that  they  pass  by  the  "  Olympia "  with 
laughter,  and  shrugging  of  the  shoulders,  or  else 
with  astonishment  and  shakes  of  the  head.  If  a 
belated  corybant  raises  a  shout  of  "  Hail,  Manet ! " 
he  is  merrily  allowed  to  shout.  It  is  superfluous 
to  shout  him  down,  for  nobody  listens  to  him. 
The  truth  is  that  the  taste  for  Manet  is  not  in  the 
least  changed.  People  find  the  "  Olympia "  every 
whit  as  repulsive  nowadays  as  it  was  thirty  years 
ago  ;  but  they  no  longer  say  so  with  a  loud  voice 
and  with  the  veins  about  their  temples  swollen, 
because,  generally,  people  no  longer  stop  before 
its  mouldy  ugliness. 

If  you  examine  very  carefully,  you  will  generally 
find  that  the  various  appraisements  of  particular 
works  in  a  new  generation  do  not  originate  from 
later  generations  regarding  it  differently  than  did 
contemporaries,  but  from  their  generally  no  longer 
viewing  it  with  the  same  eyes.  Let  us  only  bear  in 
mind  always  that  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  have 
no  feeling  of  their  own  for  artistic  beauty.  They 
act  as  if  they  had  some  feeling  only  because  they 
know  that  a  feeling  for  art  is  pronounced  to  be  a  mark 
of  higher  culture.  We  cannot  rate  too  highly  the 
part  played  in  art  idiocy  by  sham  culture,  pose, 
and  self-deception — or,  shall  we  say,  more  indul- 
gently, by  auto-suggestion?  Honest  confession  of 
obtuseness  to  art  is  hardly  found  in  any  but  the 

330 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

two  poles  of  humanity  —  on  the  extreme  summit 
and  at  the  lowest  antipode.  A  man  must  be  either 
a  rustic  lout  or  an  overtopping  genius  like  Prince 
Bismarck,  to  confess  that  he  can  make  nothing 
of  the  fine  arts.  The  culture-Philistine  never  has 
this  courage.  He  always  pretends  that  he  finds 
luxurious  enjoyment  in  the  contemplation  of  art. 
This  culture-Philistine  always  repeats  what  has  been 
said  to  him ;  he  admires  where  the  Baedeker-star 
prescribes  admiration.  And  he  is,  in  many  cases, 
not  even  dishonest.  He  persuades  himself  that  he 
feels  what  he  regards  it  as  his  duty  as  an  educated 
man  to  feel ;  and  he  really  comes  to  feel  it  in  the 
end,  thanks  to  this  self-persuasion.  All  the  effects 
of  art  depend  on  suggestion,  so  far  as  they  are 
not  concerned  with  the  most  absolutely  primitive 
and  undifferentiated  sensual  excitations.  On  one 
who  has  a  genuine  feeling  for  art  the  work  of  art 
itself  conveys  the  suggestion,  which  is  followed  by 
feelings  of  pleasure.  On  the  average  men,  whose 
blunt  nerves  take  no  impression  from  the  work  of 
art  itself,  the  Baedeker-star  —  the  label  —  exercises 
this  suggestion.  If  a  work  of  art  has  once  got  the 
reputation  of  excellence,  either  because  it  deserves 
it,  or  because  it  acquired  it  from  a  dishonest,  busy, 
bold,  and  swaggering  clique,  the  next  generation 
of  Philistines  in  art  does  not  test  it  further,  but 
takes  it  as  something  accepted.  The  clique  can 
then  state  triumphantly  that  the  work  they  have 


On  Art  and  Artists 

puffed   is   a   success.      But  has   it   on   that   account 
acquired  real  success? 

The  number  of  free,  strong  men  is  extremely 
small,  who  have  the  courage,  desire,  and  ability  to 
examine  the  veracity  of  traditional  labels ;  but  there 
is  a  frightful  devastation  every  time  that  such  an 
idol-destroyer  and  overthrower  of  altars  breaks  into 
the  Temple  of  Renown,  which  is  guarded  by 
that  dragon,  the  Good  Old  Way.  People  are  then 
convinced  about  the  quantity  of  plaster  rubbish 
which  has  been  smuggled  into  proximity  with  real 
marble  and  gold  -  and  -  ivory  work  in  the  semi- 
darkness  of  the  sanctuary,  and  has  enjoyed  for 
hundreds,  perhaps  for  thousands  of  years,  the  same 
veneration  as  the  wonder  -  working  revelations  of 
genius. 

But  suppose  we  conceive  in  our  mind's  eye  the 
extremely  rare  case  in  which  a  real  masterpiece 
was  misjudged  at  first,  and,  later  on,  was  greeted 
with  acclamations.  In  this  case  the  question,  as  a 
rule,  is  not  of  lack  of  understanding,  but  of  lack  of 
sense  of  proportion.  The  contemporary  age  which 
blames,  and  the  succeeding  age  which  praises,  are 
both  right,  i.e.,  they  do  not  praise  and  blame  the 
same  thing,  and  the  divergent  appraisement  of  the 
work  is  simply  due  to  the  fact  that  contemporaries 
like  to  dwell  on  the  faults  and  overlook  the 
excellencies,  whilst  latter  generations  neglect  the 
faults  and  regard  only  the  excellencies.  The  con- 
temporaries were  biassed  in  severity,  their  successors 

332 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

are  biassed  in  indulgence.  Ideal  justice  is  not  of 
this  world.  But  faults  remain  faults  even  in  the 
ages  that  come  after,  and  excellencies,  too,  were 
excellencies  even  in  the  period  of  their  origin  ;  and 
it  is  jugglery  and  forgery  when  people  interpret  the 
change  in  appraisement  as  if  a  later  generation  had 
admired  as  a  merit  that  which  an  earlier  generation 
had  stigmatised  as  a  fault.  Just  one  example  to 
illustrate  these  propositions :  Millet  is  said  to  have 
passed  for  "a  dauber  and  smearer."  Now,  his 
contemporaries  who  blamed  him  used  no  such 
harsh  expression.  They  said  only  that  Millet  drew 
incorrectly  and  painted  carelessly,  and  those  with  a 
real  feeling  for  art  notice  exactly  the  same  thing 
to-day,  only  they  say  it  no  longer,  unless  the 
question  is  expressly  put  to  them.  On  the  other 
hand,  his  contemporaries,  too,  noticed  his  deep  moral 
earnestness,  his  warm  human  feeling,  the  touching 
simplicity  of  his  style,  which  we  prize  so  highly  in 
Millet  to-day.  But  they  were  not  inclined  to  forgive 
him  his  defects  in  execution  on  account  of  these 
intellectual  merits,  whilst  we  take  his  weakness  in 
form  into  the  bargain  on  account  of  the  feeling  it 
contains.  These  weaknesses,  however,  are  there 
to-day  precisely  as  they  were  thirty  years  ago, 
and  he  who  fails  to  see  them  is  guilty  of  presump- 
tion if  he  passes  a  verdict  on  pictures. 

Taking  them  altogether,  the  works  and  artists  that 
were  overvalued  by  contemporaries  are  far  more 
numerous  than  those  that  were  underestimated  at 

333 


On  Art  and  Artists 

the  beginning.  And  even  in  the  extremely  few 
cases  of  the  latter  category,  the  injustice  of  con- 
temporaries did  not,  as  a  rule,  take  the  form  of 
violent  opposition,  but  that  of  indifference.  Con- 
temporaries did  not  gainsay  their  beauty ;  but  it 
escaped  their  attention,  because  this  was  claimed 
by  other  fashions  and  styles.  No  work  of  plastic 
art  that  is  nowadays  accepted  without  dispute  was 
rejected,  when  it  appeared,  with  such  anger  as 
certain  products  of  the  "  Secession "  are  at  the 
present  day. 

That  is  natural.  The  conditions  of  art  production 
were  half  a  century  ago  absolutely  different  to  what 
they  are  now.  The  artist  gave  his  personality  full 
scope,  and  sought  to  please  only  a  few  customers 
of  rank,  without  troubling  himself  about  the  people 
at  large.  To-day  he  wants  to  excite  a  sensation  at 
any  price,  and  he  looks,  for  this  end,  not  into  him- 
self, but  about  himself.  By  creating  he  is  not 
satisfying  his  impulse  to  give  form  and  shape,  but 
his  hunger  for  success. 

Vain  amour  propre,  swaggering,  conceited  vanity 
and  cunning  "  pushfulness  "  are  the  motives  that  far 
too  often  guide  the  artist's  brush  or  chisel.  The 
coarse  vulgarity  of  the  means  corresponds  with  the 
coarse  vulgarity  of  the  motives  and  aims.  One 
must  make  a  sensation,  and  that  is  attained  most 
easily  by  a  rowdy  rebellion  against  taste,  truth,  and 
healthy  human  intelligence.  If  he  annoys  his 
contemporaries,  the  ruthless  advertiser  finds  his 

334 


Works  of  Art  and  Art  Criticisms 

account  more  surely  than  if  he  praised  them.  Only 
he  who  startles  dares  hope  to  be  noticed  in  our 
present  huge  exhibitions  with  their  three  thousand 
numbers.  That  is  why  the  unscrupulous  competitor 
works  with  the  object  of  startling,  and  only  with 
that  object.  His  natural  allies  are  writers  who 
seek  by  aggressive  criticism  to  satisfy  the  same 
hysterical  impulse  towards  sensation  as  he,  and  the 
snobs  who  hope  to  justify  their  claim  to  be  un- 
Philistine  by  pretending  to  discover  and  appreciate 
hidden  beauties,  where  the  thick-headed  majority 
of  their  fellow  -  men  observe  and  condemn  only 
unblushing  outrages  on  the  sense  of  beauty. 

The  necessity  for  creating  a  sensation  has  arisen 
only  in  our  times  of  over-production  in  all  fields  of 
intellectual  creation,  and  of  frightfully  murderous 
competition  for  success.  In  the  earlier  days  of  art 
it  played  hardly  any  part  at  all.  On  this  account 
it  is  fallacious  to  try  to  deduce  from  the,  after  all, 
extremely  rare  romances  of  works,  originally  mis- 
judged but  afterwards  recognised,  in  the  past,  an 
argument  in  favour  of  certain  creations  of  the 
present  day,  which  a  large  proportion  of  educated 
men  rejects,  not  because  they  do  not  understand, 
them,  but  because  they  understand  them  only  too 
well. 

Let  men  only  have  the  quiet  courage  not  to 
allow  themselves  to  be  put  out  of  countenance ; 
they  will  carry  their  point  even  before  posterity. 


335 


XVII 
MY    OWN    OPINION 

THERE  is  hardly  anything  which  I  hate  so  cordially 
as  opportunistic  criticism,  which,  in  respect  of  pheno- 
mena in  art-production  presented  in  a  noisy  and 
pretentious  way,  affecting  to  signify  modernity  and 
progress,  does  not  honestly  take  a  side,  but  with 
the  cunning  foresight  of  the  bat  in  the  fable  attempts 
to  come  to  an  understanding  with  both  the  opposing 
armies,  of  the  birds  and  of  the  mice.  Criticism  that 
openly  wears  the  uniform  of  a  pronounced  move- 
ment in  art  can  be  put  up  with.  The  enemy  of  the 
movement  rights  the  criticism  and  the  movement  at 
the  same  time.  It  shares  all  the  fates  of  its  banner  ; 
it  is  in  the  danger,  and  it  may  be  in  the  victory.  If 
the  movement  for  which  it  carries  weapons  succumbs, 
it  gets  the  worst  of  it  too,  and  experiences  the  treat- 
ment accorded  to  the  vanquished.  It  has  to  lay 
down  its  weapons  of  criticism,  falls  into  contempt, 
and  has  no  longer  the  possibility  of  devastating  art 
life,  of  perplexing  artists,  and  oppressing  those  who 
enjoy  art.  Insufferable,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the 

336 


My  Own  Opinion 

clever,  the  unprejudiced,  the  eclectics,  the  smooth 
civil  sneerers  who  praise,  yet  with  faintness,  who 
blame,  yet  with  a  saving  clause,  who  carry  in  their 
lips  such  well-known  and  rather  good  phrases  as  : 
"  Certainly,  there  is  some  exaggeration  here,  but 
the  peculiar  style  is  not  to  be  misjudged " :  "  It  is 
certainly  no  finished  creation,  but  the  work,  never- 
theless, contains  some  promise":  "This  is  not  exactly 
a  work,  you  know,  which  one  could  recommend  for 
imitation,  yet  there  is  much  to  be  learnt  from  it " : 
"  It  is  the  new  wine  in  Goethe's  Faust  that  is  acting 
so  absurdly,  but  still  perhaps  it  will  yield  a  good 
vintage."  These  people  who  talk  so  sweetly  are  those 
who  really  poison  the  springs  of  public  taste.  Thanks 
to  them,  movements  which  ought  to  stand  without  the 
pale  of  the  law  enjoy  a  sort  of  equal  justification,  as 
it  were,  of  the  aesthetic,  historico-artistic  copyright. 
Their  mask  of  benevolence,  justice,  and  toleration 
gains  them  the  confidence  of  the  irresolute,  who, 
left  to  their  own  feeling,  would  recognise,  at  once, 
in  certain  works,  either  a  gross  impropriety  of  the 
shameless  sort,  or  an  indubitable  manifestation  of 
insanity,  yet  through  the  cheap  phrases  of  oppor- 
tunistic critics,  become  doubtful  of  themselves  and 
say :  "  If  such  sober-minded  scholars  as  this  and 
that  critic  constantly  find  something  to  recognise 
in  this  stuff,  I  am  perhaps  wrong  to  condemn  it  at 
once." 

Moderate    feelings    are    much    more    widespread 
than  extreme  feelings.     They  are  the  normal  product 

337  Y 


On  Art  and  Artists 

of  the  nervous  system  in  civilised  men  ;  to  the  great 
majority  of  half-coloured,  faded  grey  men  subdued 
colours  only  are  sympathetic ;  violent  and  shrill 
colours  may  amuse  it ;  but,  in  its  innermost  being, 
it  feels  instinctively  drawn  only  to  the  lukewarm 
ones.  It  believes  them ;  and  on  their  informa- 
tion, on  their  irresponsible  recommendation,  gives 
to  the  most  openly  rascally  art -firms  the  credit 
through  which  alone  they  can  hold  out  for  a 
while. 

And  these  critical  warpers  of  justice  are  not 
assailable.  They  always  play  an  imposing  part,  and 
are  always  right.  If  an  objectionable  movement 
lasts — and  there  are  aberrations  which  have  held 
their  ground  for  at  least  a  generation — then  they 
triumph  modestly,  for  they  have  been  among  its 
first  heralds  and  have  "  recognised  at  once  the  sound 
kernel  in  the  first  strange  shell."  If  the  imbecility 
is  as  such  patent  to  all,  and  disappears  amidst  the 
derisive  laughter  of  the  intelligent,  they  triumph 
again,  only  somewhat  more  self  -  consciously,  for 
they  have  "  not  let  themselves  be  dazzled  by 
novelty,  and  have  pointed  out  its  weaknesses,  and 
worked  strenuously  at  its  defeat."  Thus  every 
adventure  in  art  life,  every  campaign  in  criticism, 
be  its  issue  what  it  may,  increases  their  esteem ; 
and  the  longer  they  continue  their  course,  which 
is  so  mischievous  to  the  community,  the  more 
blindly  the  multitude  yields  to  their  leadership, 
and  the  greater  devastation  they  are  guilty  of 

338 


My  Own  Opinion 

through  their  dishonourable  exercise  of  their  office 
of  guardians  in  matters  of  art. 

I    well   know   how   this   opportunism   in  criticism 
arises.     It   is   the   result  of  the  co-operation  of  the 
basest  and  most  despicable  intellectual  qualities.     I 
find  its  causes  in  the  dull   feeling   for   the  beautiful 
which  renders  weak  and  indistinct  all  reactions  from 
artistic  influences,  and  suffers  neither  delight  nor  irrita- 
tion to  arise  :  in  the  cowardly  fear  of  man  and  pitiful 
adulation,  which  aims  at  injuring  no  one   and   only 
thinks  of  keeping  a  retreat  open  for   itself;   finally 
in  common  vanity,  which  prefers  to  please  a  crowd 
of  gaping  boobies  rather   than   the   select   few,  and 
the  flattering,  though  so  cheap,  reputation  of  being 
"very   intellectual,"    to    the   responsibility   of   crude 
performance  of  duty.     The  favourite  word  by  which 
the  opportunistic  critics  compound  with  every  artistic 
confidence  trick  is  "  development."    If  the  clairvoyant 
monitor  utters  the  cry  of  "  decay  and  degeneracy," 
the  opportunists  reply,  "buds  of  a  new  and  splendid 
bloom."     They  love  to  appeal  to  the  history  of  art. 
That  is  right.     When  the  Masolinos  and  Masaccios 
sprang   up,  the   last  pupils   of  Gaddi   and  Orcagna 
whimpered,    "  Now   there    is    an   end    of  painting." 
But  what  was   at  an   end  was   Byzantine   art   filled 
by  Cimabue   and   Giotto  with  some   fresh   life,  and 
what  began  was  the  ever  glorious  Cinquecento.     And 
much   nearer   to   us :   when    Delacroix   emancipated 
himself  from  the  colour  rules  of  David's  pupils,  and 
broke   out   into   a   downright  exultation  of  red  and 

339 


On  Art  and  Artists 

blue  and  purple ;  when  Corot,  Rousseau,  and  Dupre 
set  homely  nature  viewed  with  lyric  eyes  in  the  place 
of  Poussin's  classic  landscape  degenerated  into  dial 
painting ;  then  earnest  voices  likewise  accused  the 
innovators  of  digging  the  grave  of  art,  and  yet  we 
know  nowadays  that  Delacroix  and  Corot  were  by 
no  means  the  wild  anarchists  which  the  Academicians 
held  them  to  be,  and  that  an  uninterrupted  line  of 
development  extends  from  David  and  Prudhon 
through  Gericault  to  Delacroix,  and  from  Nicholas 
Poussin  and  Claude  Lorrain  through  Joseph  Vernet, 
and  even  through  Watteau  to  Corot — a  line  which 
was  unnoticed  by  contemporaries,  yet  one  which  we 
now  see  clearly.  It  is  the  dodge  of  an  unscrupulous 
attorney  to  quote  these  examples  when  treating  of 
the  art  of  a  Puvis  de  Chavannes,  an  Aman-Jean, 
the  Prae-Raphaelites,  pointillistes,  vermicellistes,  and 
pipists.  There  are  sure  marks  of  recognition  by 
which  the  authorised  can  be  distinguished  from  the 
unauthorised,  the  true  from  the  false,  development 
from  retrogression,  and  buds  from  gall-nuts.  A 
movement  which,  indeed,  resolutely  diverges  from 
the  taste  dominant  at  a  given  time,  though  striving 
to  approach  nature,  need  not,  but  may,  have  a  future ; 
and  he  who  does  not  suffer  from  stiffness  in  the 
joints  will  not,  as  a  matter  of  course  and  on  principle, 
refuse  to  follow  it  with  benevolent  curiosity.  If, 
however,  the  new  movement  departs  from  nature, 
one  may  confidently  say  "it  leads  to  nothing."  If 
an  independent  method  which  strives  after  personal 

340 


My  Own  Opinion 

expression  reveals  itself  in  a  revolutionary  effort — 
however  peculiarly,  nay,  perversely,  it  might  impress 
— the  intelligent  man  will  not  condemn,  but  wait 
to  see  if  something  living  comes  from  the  attempt. 
If  the  practised  eye,  however,  recognises,  in  the 
peculiarity,  either  a  cunning  imitation  or  a  cold- 
blooded, intentional  oddity,  then  one  may  confidently 
pronounce  the  death  sentence,  for  it  contains  in  itself 
no  germs  whatever  of  development.  The  only  two 
eternal  sources  of  art  are,  and  will  be,  feeling  for 
nature  and  personality.  Fidelity  to  nature  and 
honesty  produce  living  creations.  Unnaturalness 
and  affectation  are  marks  of  decay.  He  who  ever 
holds  fast  to  these  simple  dicta  will  hardly  ever  run 
the  risk  of  mistaking  a  Will-o'-the-Wisp  for  a  light- 
house, or  what  is  morally,  if  not  practically,  a  more 
serious  error,  of  treading  under  foot  an  insignificant 
chrysalis  with  the  living  and  beautiful  butterfly  it 
enshrines. 

Even  of  the  manifestations  of  insanity  of  crack- 
brained  painters,  of  the  hoaxes  of  tricky  strugglers 
for  success,  and  the  whims  of  childishly  immature 
and  childishly  careless  people  living  from  hand  to 
mouth,  who  have  sprung  up  in  the  last  two  or  three 
decades,  the  good  man's  insinuating  word  of  the 
"  sound  kernel,"  of  the  "  tendencies,  capable  of 
development,  to  a  new  blossoming  of  art,"  has  been 
spoken  by  the  opportunistic  of  critics.  Well,  time 
has  now  given  the  answer  to  these  verdicts,  at  any 
rate  in  regard  to  some  of  the  movements  for  which 

341 


On  Art  and  Artists 

those  prophets  so  benevolently  predicted  a  glorious 
future.  Fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago  we  saw  in  the 
Paris  Salon,  beside  the  expressionless  fabrications 
of  the  usual  daubing  artisans — the  "  Mother's  Joys," 
the  "  Young  Lady  at  her  Toilet,"  the  "  Oyster  with 
Lemons,"  which  constitute  the  stock  in  trade  of  all 
exhibitions  of  pictures — only  two  formulae  appear 
in  hundreds  of  repetitions :  the  vulgarly  realistic, 
after  the  style,  let  us  say — to  mention  a  particular 
name  —  of  Bastien  Lepage,  that  pupil  of  Cabanel 
who  had  degenerated  into  an  apostle  of  Courbet ; 
and  the  pseudo-idealistic,  after  the  model  of  Puvis 
de  Chavannes.  Workmen  with  brutalised  counte- 
nances and  greasy  blouses,  and  unearthly  figures 
in  antiquated  landscapes  of  chalky  paleness,  disputed 
the  visitor's  attention.  A  concreteness  which  did  not 
spare  us  a  single  finger-nail  in  mourning,  struggled 
for  supremacy  with  a  careless  vagueness  which 
styled  itself  "Abstraction"  or  "Synthesis,"  and 
produced  only  questionably  schematic  types.  Whole 
walls  exhibited  unbroken  rows  of  pictures  which 
reminded  us  of  the  spectral  ballet  of  the  dead  nuns 
in  "  Robert  the  Devil."  Then  we  came  to  rooms 
where  an  unmixed  company  of  rag  -  pickers,  and 
night  -  men  exercising  their  calling,  of  huzzies  on 
the  night-prowl,  dung  -  carting  stable-helps,  and 
rapscallions  at  loggerheads,  were  quite  at  home. 
One  of  these  movements,  i.e.,  painting  in  faint 
colours,  has  hardly  a  representative  left ;  the  other 

342 


My  Own  Opinion 

— the  art  of  vulgarity,  meanness,  and  ugliness — only 
a  dwindling  few. 

Here,  then,  we  have  two  movements,  to  which  "  the 
intellectuals  "  have  promised  a  future.  One  of  them 
is  as  dead  as  a  door-nail  and  buried,  the  other  dying. 
He  who  did  not  let  himself  be  cheated,  or  want 
to  cheat  others,  could  predict  this  outcome  with 
certainty.  Debased  realism  was  a  misunderstanding 
of  the  impulse  towards  truth  displayed  by  the  Manet 
School.  This  School  held  itself  bound  in  conscience 
to  record  minutely  even  the  unessential  and  the 
ugly  accessories.  Their  limited  imitators  sought 
only  that  which  was  ugly  and  unessential  in  the 
world  of  phenomena.  They  thereby  wandered  far 
from  the  eternal  aim  of  art — to  excite  an  emotion 
by  a  work  of  art ;  for  the  mere  imitation  of  a  sight 
either  actually  indifferent  or  frankly  repulsive  can 
never  excite  an  emotion.  It  was,  therefore,  easy  to 
recognise  that  this  tendency  could  not  be  lasting. 
The  pseudo-idealism  of  Puvis  de  Chavannes  showed 
the  other  infallible  mark  of  morbidity,  viz.,  im- 
personality and  dishonesty.  He  tried,  by  an  artificial 
bleaching  of  colours  and  a  semi-transparent  white- 
wash, to  produce  the  effect  of  old  and  faded  frescoes, 
in  which  their  age  of  several  hundred  years  is  an 
element  of  aesthetic  effect,  by  reason  of  the  dim 
depictment  of  what  is  remote,  dead  and  gone,  and 
unknown  ;  by  reason  of  the  longing  they  awake  for 
what  has  for  ever  passed  away  and  will  never  appear 
again.  It  was  imitation  ;  it  was  an  attempt  to 

343 


On  Art  knd  Artists 

deceive.  It  was  not  the  honest  revelation  of  person- 
ality, but  its  disguise  in  a  strange,  historical  costume. 
That  had  no  future,  and  it  could  not  last. 

What  justified  the  primitive  naturalism  of  the 
pioneers,  the  convinced  fervent  service  of  truth, 
this  survives  victoriously  every  change  in  fashion, 
and,  in  fact,  is  developing  strongly  further.  True 
naturalism,  which  grows  enthusiastic  for  the  poetry 
of  unpretentious  sights,  and  was  the  logical  develop- 
ment of  Rousseau's  return  to  nature,  and  of  Greuze's 
village  stories  inspired  by  that  return  (the  "Village 
Bride,"  the  "Father's  Curse,"  the  "Son's  Punish- 
ment," etc.),  has  held  its  ground.  On  the  other 
hand,  loathsome  painting,  which  is  naturalism  run 
mad,  has  been  finally  conquered,  and  the  spectral 
painting  of  Puvis  is  about  to  follow  it  into  oblivion. 

These  much -extolled  tendencies  have,  then,  no 
future  in  them.  They  were  not  buds  which  were 
to  develop  into  blossom  and  fruit.  They  were 
wild  suckers  in  which  a  generation  of  artists  fruit- 
lessly squandered  its  best  strength,  and  which  are 
now  withered  and  blown  away  by  the  wind. 

And  that,  too,  will  be  the  lot  of  other  aberrations 
which  have  not  yet  quite  run  their  riotous  course. 
That  may  be  predicted  with  quiet  confidence,  without 
any  being  taught  by  the  future  of  another. 

A  great  philosophical  doctrine  is  deducible  from 
these  facts.  All  development — including  that  of  art, 
which  is  a  part  of  nature  and  a  part  of  human  nature, 
and  obeys  the  common  laws  of  nature — all  develop- 

344 


My  Own  Opinion 

ment  is  constant,  and  will  be  diverted  from  its 
logical  course  by  no  power.  Its  great  procession 
always  goes  through  a  main  street,  and  sudden 
turnings  aside  branch  off  only  into  blind  alleys. 
Extreme  forms  have  no  stability ;  they  remain 
individual  monstrosities  without  issue.  The  strenuous 
life  is  always  making  efforts  back  towards  the  typical 
constitution  of  the  species.  In  art  this  law  may  be 
found  deplorable  up  to  a  certain  point ;  for  it  is 
inimical  to  strong  individualities,  even  to  honest  and 
justifiable  ones,  and  favourable  to  the  indifferent 
average,  whilst  in  art  the  absolutely  untypical 
individualities  are  full  of  charm.  But,  as  things 
are,  it  is  the  iron  law  of  development  which  no 
living  thing  can  escape. 

It  is  not  easy  to  oppose  successfully  the  oppor- 
tunistic criticism  which  always  professes  to  see, 
even  in  the  maddest  and  silliest  things,  at  any  rate, 
"  germs  of  artistic  development " ;  but  it  is,  never- 
theless, a  duty  of  subjective  morality  to  do  so.  My 
verdict  on  many  notabilities  of  fashion  stands  in 
sharp  contrast  to  that  which  one  generally  hears 
and  reads  about  them  nowadays.  He  who  does  not 
suffer  from  the  delusion  of  greatness,  or  a  morbid  dis- 
temper of  contradiction,  feels  a  position  of  this  kind 
painfully.  I  have  earnestly  and  conscientiously  tried 
whether  my  adversaries  were  justified  in  demanding 
that  I,  as  an  individual,  should  submit  to  their  huge 
majority.  Well,  I  cannot  concede  this  right  to  them. 
In  dozens  of  instances,  I  have  too  closely  observed  how 

345 


On  Art  and  Artists 

the  unanimity  of  contemporary  opinion  about  an  artist 
arises.     It  is  enough  for  an  artist  to  invent  a  whim 
and  obstinately  cling  to  it,  without  letting  himself 
be  put  out  by  indifference,  vexation,  or  scorn.     Very 
soon  some  ass  of  a  critic  will  come  and  explain  this 
whim   as  an  inspiration  of  genius.     This  he  will  do 
out   of  vanity,  affectation   of  originality,  or  an  itch 
for  sensation.     He  will  do  it  to  give  the  impression 
that  he  is  of  more  brilliant  intellect  than  the  common 
herd,   and   that   he   alone   can  appreciate   a   beauty 
which    the    Philistines    stupidly    pass    by.      If   the 
humbug  of  a  critic  has  some  skill  in  coining  phrases, 
a  little  perseverance,  and  a  fairly  sonorous  pulpit,  he 
will  infallibly,  in  course  of  time,  collect  a  congrega- 
tion around  him  ;  for  it  is  easy  to  gain  adherents  to 
a  chapel  which  one  designates  as  a  place  of  worship 
for  the  intellectual  elite,  men  of  fine  feelings,  and  those 
gifted  with  understanding.     Provided  that  this  sham 
lasts  only  a  few  years,  it  must  needs   triumph  over 
all  opposition.     A  young  generation  grows  up  which 
takes  it  for  granted.     No  one  puts  to  the  test  what 
has  come  into  his  possession,  but  takes  it  as  a  matter 
of  course.     It  attains  iron  permanence.     What  was  a 
paradox  yesterday  has  attained  the  rights  of  dogma 
to-day  by  mere  lapse  of  time.     Busy  pens  now  vie  in 
outbidding  each  other  in  the  elegance  and  wittiness  of 
the  phrases  with  which  they  express  the  prescribed 
admiration  for  the   great   man.     If  an   independent 
person  steps  forward,  and  shows   the  worthlessness 
of  the  puffed  up  celebrity,  the  devotees  of  the  little 

346 


My  Own  Opinion 

chapel,  which  has  grown  into  a  great  church,  feel  an 
honest  indignation  against  the  heretic.  "  How  does 
this  man  dare  to  doubt,  when  we,  who  are  certainly 
better  and  cleverer  than  he,  piously  believe."  That  is 
the  history  of  every  religion :  when  it  is  organised  it 
becomes  intolerant  and  endeavours  to  assert  itself  by 
means  of  violence.  But,  to  the  honour  of  mankind, 
there  are,  nevertheless,  always  independent  spirits 
who  will  not  let  themselves  be  intimidated,  and 
on  whom  authority  does  not  impose.  They  test  the 
dogma,  and  kick  it  away  if  it  is  not  firmly  based. 
The  stake  has  not  protected  religion  from  these 
independent  critics;  still  less  can  the  Corybants  of 
art-reporting  guard  a  fashionable  idol  from  them. 

The  right  of  criticising  the  views  even  of  the  most 
overwhelming  majority  must  be  maintained.  A  final 
proof  in  disputed  questions  regarding  aesthetics  is, 
I  admit,  not  to  be  supplied.  All  artistic  influence 
rests  on  suggestion.  The  work  of  art,  itself  and, 
originally,  exercises  the  suggestion  on  a  minority 
endowed  with  delicate  sensibilities.  On  the  great 
majority  an  opinion  of  others,  delivered  with  firmness 
does  so.  The  great  majority  of  people  admire  one 
who  is  praised  because  it  is  suggested  to  them  by 
his  trumpeters  that  it  is  their  duty  to  admire  him. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  feel  the  admiration, 
without  being  conscious  that  not  the  work  of  art 
has  inspired  them  with  it,  but  the  enthusiastic 
gossip  which  they  have  read  and  heard  about  it. 
These  people  refuse  to  believe  me  when  I  tell  them 

347 


On  Art  and  Artists 

that  they  are  admiring  something  which  is  an 
aberration.  The  prior  suggestion  prevents  them 
from  tolerating  a  fresh  suggestion  from  me.  No 
one,  however,  can  contest  this  so  far  as  he  is  quite 
certain  only  of  his  own  feelings.  In  art,  effect  is 
an  infallible  criterion,  even  if  of  only  subjective 
value.  If  a  man  feels  definitely  as  regards  certain 
pictures  that  they  are  valueless  and  unmeaning,  he 
has  a  right  to  express  it  as  strongly  and  honestly 
as  he  feels  it,  even  if  millions  declare  that  they 
discover  all  kinds  of  loveliness  and  depth  of  meaning 
in  them.  One  will  perhaps  fail  to  convince  a  single 
creature,  and  will,  as  likely  as  not,  long  remain  a 
preacher  in  the  wilderness.  But  perhaps  not  for 
ever.  The  inventors  of  a  fashionable  culte,  whom 
their  selfishness  obliges  to  stand  up  for  their  own 
work,  will  not  remain  in  arms  for  ever  and  live. 
Those  who  worship  after  them  have  not  the  same 
strong,  effective  grounds,  the  originator's  vanity,  for 
defending  that  culte  desperately.  The  snobs  who 
thronged  to  it  because  it  was  the  singularity  and 
they  were  the  exceptions,  necessarily  abandon  it  as 
it  becomes  commonplace  and  they  find  themselves 
in  a  vulgar  majority.  Then  the  uninfluenced  art-con- 
science again  faces  the  work  ;  it  becomes  susceptible 
to  the  warning  of  him  who  was,  up  to  then,  "  the 
one  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness,"  and  in  a  short 
time  all  lips  murmur :  "  That  was  indeed  a  swindle." 


348 


INDEX 


ESTHETES,  School  of,  32 

Alexander,  John  W.,  217-8 

Aman-Jean,  218-20 

Angelo,  Michael,  23 

Art,  emancipation  of,  16-22 

" for  art's  sake,"  criticism  of, 

i-5,  12-5 

,  future  of,  27 -9 

,  prettiness  in,  227-9 

,  religious,  296-7 

,  utilitarianism  in,  u-2 

Artist,  psychology  of  the,  5-9 
Artists,  influence  of  the  Byzantine, 

59 

BALZAC  MEMORIAL,  285-8 
Barbizon,  School  of,  97-8 
Bartholdi,  299 
Bartholome,  294-307 
Baudelaire,  162 
Besnard,  Albert,  220-3 
Bocklin,  326 
Boilly,  8 1 

Boldini,  Jean,  154,  223-5 
Bonheur,  Rosa,  92-3 
Botticelli,  220,  275 
Bouchot,  Henri,  57 
Bouguereau,  William,  225-30 
Bourdichon,  58 
Brangwyn,  Frank,  230-6,  274 
Bruniquel,  4 

CALLEBOTTE  ROOM,  93 
Carpeaux,  278 
Carriere,  Eugene,  166-84 
Carries,  Jean,  308-19 


Castiglione's  "Cortegiano,"  24 

Catholics,  New,  307 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  23,  33 

Century  Exhibition,  70-81,  93-4 

Cezanne,  Paul,  236-9,  259 

Charonton,  Enguerrand,  67 

Chasseriau,  83-4 

Chauchard,  91 

Chauvinism,  II 

Chavannes,    Puvis    de,    185-200, 

343 

Cimabue,  60,  121,  339 
Clouet,  67-8 
Cone,  Jacques,  67 
Conti,  145 

Corneille  of  Lyons,  67 
Corot,  100-3,  *3X 
Cottet,  Charles,  201-16 
Courbet,  91-2 
Couture,  122 
Criticism,  opportunism  in,  336-9 

DANTE,  18 
Daubigny,  104 
Daumier,  88-9,  265 
Degas,  119 

Delacroix,  84-6,  104-5 
Delisle,  Leopold,  57 
Delia  Robbia,  319 
Donner,  299 
Drolling,  79 
Dupre,  340 
Durer,  Albrecht,  188 


ENAMELS,  Carries',  318 
Exhibition,  the  Century,  70-95 


349 


Index 


FOUNTAINS,  298-9 
Fouquet,  Jehan,  67-8 
Fragonard,  74-5 
Frederic,  Leon,  239-244 
Froment,  Nicolas,  64 

GENRE  painting,  16-7 
Gerard,  79 
Gericault,  98 
Giotto,  60,  121,  339 
Girard  of  Orleans,  60 
Gleyre,  148 
Gorki,  Maxim,  261 
Gretchen,  193 
Greuze,  74-6 
Gross,  Baron,  98 

HALS,  FRANZ,  209 
Hebbel,  Friedrich,  144 
Hollen-Breughel,  265-6 
Huddleston,  Judge,  150 
Hundred  Years'  War,  Effects  of, 
56 

ICONS,  Russian,  59 
Inferno,  Dante's,  277 

JOHN  OF  ORLEANS,  63-4 
KIPLING,  RUDYARD,  93 

LAFENESTRE,  George,  57 
La  Tours,  168 
Landscape,  literary,  136-7 

,  lyrical,  137-9 

,  optical,  139-40 

Laurens,  Jean  Paul,  244-6 
Leempoels,  Jef,  246-50 
Leonardo,  188 
Lessing,  a  remark  of,  145 
Lieberman,  Max,  120 
Lorrain,  Claude,  327 

MAETERLINCK,  109 

Mallarme,  275 

Malouel,  Jean,  67 

Manet,    Eduard,    105,    108,   112, 

121,  123,  327-8 
Mantegna,  15 
Martin,  Henri,  250-6 
Meissonier,  105 


Meunier,  Constantin,  33,  34-40 
Mignot,  Jean,  67 
Millet,  89-91,  103-4,  333 
Monet,  Claude,  105-8.  112,  115-9, 

121,   123 

Montenard,  256 

Moreau,  Gustave,  93-4,  155-65 

Mouthe,  caves  of,  3 

Museum,  the  Luxembourg,  lio-l 

NIETZCHE,  275 

"OPEN  Air"  movement,  93,  100, 
1 02 

PALISSY,  BERNARD  DE,  319 

Pavilion  de  Marsan,  56 

Pere  Lachaise,  "Resurrection"  at, 

300-7 

Perreal,  Jean,  66-7 
Pissarro,  Camille,  132-144 
Plane,  mediaeval,  49-51 
Poussin,  132 
Prse-Raphaelites,  324 
Prudhon,  77 

RAFFAELLI.JEAN,  114, 119,  256-8 
Redon,  Odilon,  258 
Renaissance,  15,  23-4,  297-9 
Renoir,   Pierre    Auguste,    120-1, 

259 

Renouard,  123 
Reuter,  Fritz,  290 
Ribera,  209 
Ribot,  209 
Riesener,  79 
Rodin,  Auguste,  275-93 
Roll,  Alfred,  260-2 
Rops,  Felicien,  154,  266 
Rubens,  268 
Rude,  278 
Ruskin,  149-50 

SCHEFFER,  ARY,  86 

Sculpture  in   early  Middle  Ages, 

65 

"  Secession,"  334 
Simon,  Lucien,  262-4 
Sisley,  Alfred,  123-30 
Sluter,  299 


350 


Index 


Solutrd,  4 

Stuck,  Prof.  Franz,  320-1 

Sweden,  rock  pictures  in,  4 

THIERY,  96-7 

Salon,  101 

Thoma,  Hans,  326 
Trutat,  81-3 

VAN  EYCK,  the  brothers,  60-2 
Veber,  Jean,  264-8 
Velasquez,  209 


Vernet,  Horace,  87 
Vigee-Lebrun,  74,  76-7 

WATTEAU,  74-5,  261 
Wery,  Emil,  269 
Whistler,  James,  144-54 
Wierz,  155 
Wilczek,  Count,  68 
Worms,  Jules,  272 

ZORN,  ANDERS,  120,  154,  270-1 
Zuloaga,  Ignacio,  270-4 


351 


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